People are trashing a budget airline and saying it put them up in ‘disgusting’ cockroach-infested hotel rooms in Cyprus and Spain after their flights were canceled.
Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images
Angry passengers are tweeting at EasyJet for putting them up in sub-par hotels after flight cancellations.
A flyer wrote she slept on the floor “as the ceiling fan is hanging off and can’t be turned off without injury.”
The UK-based budget airline canceled 1,700 flights between July and September, per Reuters.
Disgruntled passengers stranded by a budget airline’s flight cancellations are blasting the “disgusting” hotels the carrier put them in.
Of the 90,000 flights scheduled for the rest of July and August, British budget airline EasyJet has canceled around 1,700 flights, predominantly from London’s Gatwick airport, Reuters reported on Monday.
The airline blamed the cancellations on the air traffic control disruptions across the continent, per the report.
And soon, angry passengers began tweeting about their disappointing experiences when the airline booked them in hotels that they considered to be sub-par.
Twitter user @angeldelight28 shared pictures of the hotel room she said EasyJet had put her up in after her flight to Liverpool was canceled, leaving her stranded in Larnaca, Cyprus. The pictures showed a barebones hotel room with unidentified stains over the patio and bathroom floors.
The passenger, who went by Clare on Twitter, tweeted on Monday: “The hotel I was put in was horrendous!! 1 star if that. I arrived 2am, I didn’t sleep a wink. With cockroaches, room was dirty the bed was awful. This isn’t the way to treat paying customers.”
—clare (@angeldelight28) July 9, 2023
At press time, EasyJet’s website showed that a round-trip journey between Larnaca and Liverpool in July and August cost around $450 to $650.
Another passenger, Zoe Wright, tweeted through her account @zoewrightfcipd on Tuesday: “Thanks for cancelling our flight home from lanzarote tonight and checking us in to the most disgusting, dangerous hotel on the island at nearly midnight… I’m having to sleep on the floor as the ceiling fan is hanging off and can’t be turned off without injury!”
—zoe wright (@zoewrightfcipd) July 10, 2023
Insider could not independently verify both claims.
Passenger Mark Buntin told the Daily Mail in a report published Wednesday that he spent around £350, or around $450, on a three-hour taxi ride from Bristol to Luton to catch an alternative flight after his initial flight to Dalaman, Turkey, was canceled.
An EasyJet spokesperson told Insider in an email on Thursday that the airline works with a hotel provider to secure overnight accommodation and meals for those customers who need them.
“We are sorry that this accommodation fell below the standards expected for these customers and so in light of their feedback we are looking into this with our hotel provider,” the spokesperson said.
The airline told Sky News in a Monday report these flight cancellations were due to strikes by air traffic controllers in Europe and the impact of airspace closures due to the Russia-Ukraine war. According to the UK’s civil aviation authority, it is a legal requirement that airlines offer passengers a choice between a refund or an alternative flight in the event of a flight cancellation.
In its 2022 annual report, EasyJet said it had flown 69.7 million passengers in 2022 — up from 20.4 million in 2021 — and operated mainly out of London’s Gatwick and Amsterdam’s Schipol airports.
Last year marked a period of unprecedented travel chaos, Insider reported, as airlines struggled to adjust to increased post-pandemic demand. Insider’s Hannah Towey reported on travelers’ stories of their pandemic-delayed life events — funerals, weddings, and honeymoons — were ruined by canceled or delayed flights last year.