Daily Mail, Thursday, August 8, 2019 Page 7
QQQA SUMMER HOLIDAY
gFURY OF HELPLESS FAMILIES CAUGHT UP IN THE CHAOS
£160 cab to Gatwick, to
be told: No flight for you
Bank manager Simon Chapman,
43, was due to travel from Heathrow
to Barcelona with his children Vio-
lette, 14, and 11-year-old Jack.
He paid £350 for their tickets on
the 9.25am flight – only to realise it
had been cancelled after they went
through security.
Mr Chapman was told he could fly
from Gatwick. So he had to fork out
£160 on a taxi, spending a total of
£900 on flights and travel.
Staggeringly, he was then told by
staff at Gatwick they were not listed
on the 2.40pm flight – after queuing
for an hour and a half.
Mr Chapman, from Reading, said:
‘It’s unbelievable really. I booked
this back in april.
‘We’d got through security and it
was only by chance I looked at the
information board and it said our
flight was cancelled.
‘There were no more flights to Bar-
celona from Heathrow, so Gatwick
was the closest place to book from.
I was told by Ba staff at Heathrow
to re-book and they would reim-
burse me, so I did.
‘Then when we got here, and after
queuing for ages, they told me we’re
not even on the flight.
‘They said Ba hadn’t paid the
partner airline, but I’ve paid Ba. So
Ba have my money and I don’t have
any flights. It’s so frustrating. I’ve
forked out £900 more than I needed
to spend and I’m not even seeing
anything for it.’
‘We’re only going for five days and
it looks like our first day is going to
be a write-off, and we’re not even
going very far.’Cancelled flight – and
where were BA staff?
TeaCHeR Susan Howitt, 38, was
hoping to travel to Bologna with her
husband Peter, also 38, a civil serv-
ant, but received a text as they
arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 withtheir children Joseph, ten, Luke,
eight, and six-year-old Timothy, to
tell them that their 2.40pm flight
had been cancelled.
‘It means we will now be on a flight
at 8am tomorrow and will have to
stay at a hotel near the airport,’ she
said. Her husband arranged an over-
night stay at a nearby Hilton hotel,
with the cost of two rooms being
£340. She added: ‘Ba have promised
that they will reimburse us for the
cost of the rooms.’
Her husband said: ‘There havebeen plenty of airport workers
wearing purple ‘Here to Help’ polo
shirts but a real lack of Ba staff
offering any assistance.’
The family from St albans,
Hertfordshire, will lose a night of
their five-night airBnB lodgings in
Bologna before going to a Rimini
hotel for a further week.
Mr Howitt added: ‘It would have
helped us if Ba had contacted us
before we set off so we could have
stayed at home for 24 hours before
starting our holiday.’‘Mess’ that has added
£700 to cost of holiday
MaRTIn Conway, 55, was looking
forward to travelling to the coastal
city of Split and then on to
Dubrovnik in Croatia, with 11-year-
old Zofia, Oliver, 14, and Jamie, 15.
The family were due to be travel-
ling on the Ba842 at 1.35pm but the
flight was cancelled when they
arrived from their Oxford home by
bus in the morning.
‘We had to take the bus becausewe are travelling with bikes as the
children like to be active on holiday,’
explained Mr Conway.
‘In the end, we decided to take up
the offer of a flight tomorrow with
Ba, but from Gatwick.
‘We will now have to get around
the M25 and find somewhere to
sleep near Gatwick.
‘My wife is due to join us on a
separate flight tomorrow. I
imagine the whole mess is going to
cost us a further £700 on top of
the cost of the holiday.’THE CHAPMANS THE CONWAYS
THE HOWITTS
HEATHROW
By Christian Gysin
and Susie Coenwait to hear if they will be going on their long-awaited summer holidays Frustration: A passenger confronts BA staff
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