Man stranded in Alicante ‘not happy’ caught up in airline travel chaos after flying from East Midlands Airport

A man whose travel plans went awry following airline disruption over the bank holiday weekend, has been stranded in Alicante and has taken to social media to voice his dismay.

Nigel Short, from Sheffield, travelled to Alicante, along with a party of five, on Thursday August 24.

It all started off quite well, as Mr Short says the outbound journey’s flight was delayed but only by approximately 90 minutes.

Problems occurred when Mr Short checked details for the return flight to the UK, scheduled for Tuesday morning (August 29).

Mr Short, who is still in Alicante said: “We should have been home now.

“Our flight should have been this morning, there’s six of us.

“Fortunately I checked last night and found out our flight was cancelled.

“We got no notifications from Ryanair.”

Mr Short says Ryanair did offer a refund or replacement flight - the earliest time which was on Monday September 4, one week later.

Mr Short said: “They offered a replacement flight, the earliest being Monday [September 4] or a refund.

“We checked if we could fly to a different airport but Ryanair won’t let you do that.

“We had to get the refund and fly with a different airline (Vueling) to Paris, then we’ve an hour’s taxi to Eurostar station, Eurostar to London, then train home to Sheffield.

“Total cost is £4500, several of us are self-employed, we don’t get paid if we don’t work.

“So we just can’t justify the expense of staying another week, especially coupled with additional accommodation, food etc.

“Not happy.”

Replying to East Midlands Airport’s most recent social media X post, Mr Short wrote: ‘Our flight home today from Alicante is cancelled, next available was Monday. Instead we’ve had to fly to Paris tomorrow, Eurostar to London, train to Derby, taxi to EMA. Don’t suppose we can request a free extension to our car parking?’

East Midlands Airport have acquiesced and granted this free extension, which Mr Short says he is ‘very pleased about’.

Derby World has contacted Ryanair for comment who referred us to comments from Michael O’Leary, CEO of the Ryanair Group.

Mr O’Leary said: “We had a very difficult day yesterday (Monday August 28) due to the UK National Air Traffic Service (NATS) failure.

“I’m sad to report that we had to cancel about 250 flights affecting around 40,000 passengers.

“Last night we had 20 aircraft that couldn’t get back to their home base, so they’re out of place for today.

“Today, unfortunately, it looks like we’re about to cancel about another 70 flights.

“That’s a very small number out of the 3,200 flights we’re planning, but that doesn’t mean we’re not doing everything we possibly can to try to minimise the disruption for our passengers and their families.

“Everybody has received email communications from us through their bookings on what your rights and what your entitlements are.

“We’re looking to run a couple of additional, extra flights today, rescue flights.

“It’s very difficult because we’re tight on crews and aircraft, but our teams and every airport and here in the Op Centre are doing everything we can to minimise delays and cancellations to flights.

“We hope that by end of day Tuesday we’ll be running a normal operation, that is 3,200 flights with minimal delays.

“Please bear with us, we understand how inconvenient and how difficult it is if you’re caught up in one of these flight cancellations.

“If you need flight information get in your Ryanair app today and rest assured we’re doing everything we can to minimise delays, flight cancellations, and to get you and your families to your destination and get our schedules back on time, hopefully by close of play today.”

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