When our easyJet flight from London Gatwick to Larnaca, Cyprus was delayed because of the problems with aircraft's engine, then delayed again and eventually cancelled, I thought this way. OK, we had enough trouble staying on the airport for around six hours, then being transferred to the hotel, then back to airport next afternoon only to find out that he flight was delayed again. Yes we eventually flew out but I thought, will I fly easyJet again? Hardly. Not with two young kids aged 9 months and 2.5 years anyhow.But when on my way back to Gatwick, now without wife and kids, the flight was delayed again for at least 6 hours because the pilot got sick and they have been short on crew to replace him, what did I think then? The only feasible alternative was the afternoon flight the next day and I had to ask my friend who took me to the airport to do a U-turn to pick me up and drive back to Limassol. Thank goodness I had a place to stay overnight. No more of easyJet nonsense, I now thought. My family's return flight in November will be the last one. There are plenty of other budget and regular airlines to choose from. easyJet has proven to be very expensive for us. Not in monetary terms, but in terms of the amount of nerve cells and energy spent.
And as one of the fellow passengers who had to stay overnight in Gatwick put it, it's less about he fact that the plane broke down as these things do happen. It is more about how the airline handled it. There were no easyJet representatives in Gatwick to explain what exactly was going on. Hotel transfer was very badly organised with a single person for us to follow whom we kept constantly losing sight of and only 3 buses for all passengers and a 30 minutes bus turnaround. We were given vouchers for the dinner but the Holiday Inn's kitchen struggled to cope with the storm of people.
When we were checking in to the replacement outward flight 25 hours after the scheduled departure time in front of the lady at the desk I called ourselves the survivors of the Oceanic flight 815. Only later I found that I could not have been closer to truth: our flight number was 8815. Bitter fun.
