Have you booked an easyJet flight that may never take off?
Update from easyJet: 22 October 2009
"On 3 September easyJet entered into a consultation with staff over proposals to close our East Midlands base, which is a legal requirement. No decisions have yet been made, regardless of some reports in the press.
"The nature of the consultation means that the staff whose jobs may be at risk are given priority and they are the first to be informed of any decisions.
"We appreciate this is inconvenient and frustrating for passengers, but all we can confirm at the moment is that customers who are booked to fly with easyJet on flights departing or arriving at East Midlands during 2009, including the Christmas and New Year period are unaffected.
"Customers who have booked to fly in 2010 will be notified of the outcome of the decision once reached.
"easyJet has agreed to offer as a gesture of goodwill the ability to apply for a refund/re route to or from another easyJet airport to those passengers who have booked to travel to/from East Midlands in 2010.
"easyJet did not initially offer this as it would offer refunds/re-routes in the event that a decision to close the base was made. However, given the customer feedback (and despite the fact that no decision has been made), we will now do so."
Original report
easyJet's chief executive says the company's pulling out of East Midlands Airport but his company is still taking bookings for flights leaving from the airport.
The company currently operates nine flights a day on ten different routes carrying 33,000 passengers a month to and from East Midlands. So, where does that leave customers who've already booked their holidays?
Officially easyJet says no final decision has been made about continuing flights from East Midlands but on its website the boss is quoted saying, "We cannot see a growing long-term future and we have decided to move our assets to markets with better long-term potential."
The company says if it does stop flights, customers who've booked for trips after New Year will be able to transfer their bookings to an easyJet flight from another airport or get a full refund. But they can't do that now.
Any other airport might be less convenient and if the dates don't tally and you've booked accommodation it could mess up your entire holiday.
The nearest airport is Birmingham International which is 37 miles away - about an hour's drive and many of easyJet's flights are to and from London Luton Airport which is 87 miles away - around an hour and a half's drive.
easyJet's statement
easyJet is currently evaluating the future of its operation at East Midlands Airport and has launched a 90-day consultation with staff, which is a UK legal requirement.
Customers who are booked to fly with easyJet on flights departing or arriving at East Midlands during 2009, including the Christmas and New Year period are unaffected.
Customers booked to fly with easyJet departing or arriving at East Midlands Airport after this period face a possibility that flights may be affected. However, no final decision has been made.
We will contact those affected customers at the end of the 90 days and inform them of the outcome of the consultation. This will be in early December 2009.
If any decision is made to close the East Midlands operation, we will offer customers the opportunity to transfer their booking to a different easyJet flight at an alternative airport, or a full refund.
To improve transparency and in response to customer feedback, we will add a pop-up to inform passengers who are looking at East Midlands flights on our website. The text will read as follows: "Notice: easyJet is currently in consultation over a proposal to close operations at East Midlands Airport. If the proposal goes ahead the flights you are currently booking may not take place. If this proves to be the case you will be offered your choice of a full refund or re-accommodation on to a flight from another easyJet airport in the UK."
Have you booked tickets from East Midlands? Let us know your experiences. If you have any other stories you want us to investigate please email us as we cannot publish any new allegations about companies.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~53~RS~)
Comments
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My husband and I booked flights from East Midlands to Venice next February in July, and received this message on 3rd Sept
Important information regarding your flight from East Midlands airport
Thursday 3 September
As you may read in the press in the coming days, easyJet is currently evaluating the future of its operation at East Midlands airport. As a valued customer, we wanted to let you know directly that no decision will be made before December 2009 and there are no plans for aircraft to be moved during 2009.
If you are booked to fly with easyJet on flights departing from or arriving at East Midlands during 2009, including the Christmas and New Year period, your flights are unaffected and you can fly as per your current travel plans. There is no need to call our call centre as your flight will not be affected.
If you are booked to fly with easyJet departing from or arriving at East Midlands after this period, whilst there is a possibility that your flight may be affected, no final decision has been made. We appreciate this may cause you some concern, but we can assure you that we will advise you as soon as we have more information. This will be in early December 2009, once the consultation with our staff is complete. Please be aware that our call centre will be unable to provide any more information than that enclosed in this e-mail.
For more information regarding the consultation process please see the latest news section of easyJet.com.
Your easyJet team
We're not very impressed and still know no more now than then. Their web site is less than helpful.
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additional - we are going to the Venice carnival and so holiday dates aren't flexible, and we already have our accommodation booked too. We really need an answer as to where we could transfer to if they do stop flights from East Mids, and in time to make the changes to our plans.
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A group of us are due to fly from EMA in January for a golfing holdiay - we have hotels, courses etc. booked, and now do not know where we are. And to top it all, our flight (which easyjet can now no longer guarantee) is still being "sold" as available on their website, regardless of their warning pop-up. What sort of way is this to do business?
I have flown with easyjet many times in the past, but if the company pull the plug on their EMA operations without making adequate provision for customers who have already booked, then my business will go elsewhere in future.
We are now faced with a ludicrous situation - we either wait and see, and then if easyjet cancel our flights it will be too late, by early December, to find an alternative. Or we spend now on an alternative carrier, and run the risk of losing money in the event easyjet say they will carry us.
Thanks, easyjet.
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Due to fly to Geneva for a snowboarding holiday mind jan, i know other flights are going from Birmingham and London etc (a bunch of us are going from all over the country) on the same day but I'm still ruddy annoyed!
Do I get my travels costs paid for??
Doubtful!
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Within one week of booking flights for twenty six persons from East Midlands to Malaga with EasyJet next January the Company announced it was closing down the East Midlands operation.Telephone calls and E Mail messages to the Company have been to no avail and a letter sent ten days ago to the Chief Executive, copy to Stelios Haji-Ioannou ( Founder)-we still await a reply-the £2997 paid to them has not been refunded.We are left in the unhappy position of not being able to book the Hotel, as they operate a no refund policy,make coaching arrangements to and from airports and make arrangements with Bowling Clubs on the Costa del Sol.It is a distinct possibility the holiday will not take place as we are reluctant to pay for flights with another carrier until this matter has been resolved.Certainly we have no wish to fly from another Airport because of the additional costs and travelling time.The party comprise mainly retired persons,which has been explained to the Company,but they have a " could not care less" attitude.Certainly they have let us down badly and there is sufficient evidence here to warn the British public to avoid this Company in future.
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We (4 people) have had a East Midlands/Faro flight booked since mid-August to travel mid-Feb.
The hotel is booked along with 4 days golf.
If we could change our flights now, we could also change the hotel and golf dates - by December it will be too late.
Easyjet have created all this uncertainty, and the least they could do, would be to allow free flight changes for bookings beyond their year-end "guarantee".
Currently they would charge £86 per person to do the changes online - a mere nano-second in computer resources. I would grudgingly pay the £41 flight differences - but £22.50 admin fee per person per flight?
We are regular Easyjet travellers - if they mess up this holiday, I will never book a flight with them again.
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I have flights booked for the 3rd Jan.
My friend booked onto the same flight on Wednesday 23rd September, they happily took his money without any notification or warning of the proposals. This is fraudulent.
In addition it is reported that travel over the Christmas and New Year period will be unaffected.
As the New Year runs from 1 Jan 2009 until 31 Dec 2009, do they not think it would be useful to give some specific dates when flights may be pulled?
Helpful as ever. Also leaving it the last minute before they make any decision. I think it might be worth booking an alternative and a trip to the small claims court by all agrieved parties.
They need to provide refends now, nobody is going to use this company out of the East Midlands ever again, even if they keep operations there.
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My wife and I booked flights to Geneva for a January 2010 skiing trip last weekend - no warning of possible cancellation when we booked so, blissfully unaware, we continued to book a flight back (with BMI Baby), transfers to and from our resort and a hotel (with a hefty deposit).
If the Easyjet flight is cancelled we face two choices - either accept a flight from a different airport along with the additional cost of getting to the airport (probably have to be a taxi since we'll still be flying back to East Midlands), or cancel the whole trip (losing the deposit on the hotel, the cost of the BMI Baby flight back and probably incurring some penalty for cancelling the transfer). Neither option is entirely appealing.
It does seem shocking that Easyjet are able to enter into a contract with a consumer when they are aware that there is a high probability that they will not be able to honour it. I doubt it's fraudulent but it's hardly ethical or honest either. They must be aware that their customers will inevitably incur additional costs as a result. Not a particularly enlightened policy to adopt especially at a time of economic recession when everyone is counting the pennies.
One final point - Easyjet's desire to leave East Midlands Airport is clearly driven by a desire to increase profits. Perhaps they should set aside a small part of those expected increased profits to properly compensate the customers that suffer if their flights are cancelled as a result.
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Just had a very quick look at Easyjet's terms and conditions on their website.
In section 10.2 regarding "Cancellation, Changes of Schedules, etc" it states that "At any time after a reservation has been made we may change our schedules and/or cancel, terminate, divert, postpone or delay any Flight where we reasonably consider this to be justified by circumstances beyond our control or for reasons of safety".
This seems to imply that Easyjet will ONLY cancel a flight if there are circumstances beyond their control or if safety concerns exist - closing their East Midlands operation certainly doesn't seem to fall into either category.
I'm sure there will be other clauses that allow them to cancel flights for other reasons, but, if there are, then it makes section 10.2 misleading, at the very least.
I could certainly argue that, at the time of booking my flight, having referred to the specific Article within the terms and conditions that relates to cancellations, I felt assured that any decision by Easyjet to cease operations at East Midlands Airport would not lead to a cancellation of my flight. Quite reasonably I then booked the other parts of my holiday relying on that assurance.
I do not have a legal background so I could easily be talking rubbish here, but to my mind, Easyjet should take some responsibility for any financial loss I incur as a result of them cancelling a flight in a manner which seems to contravene their own terms and conditions (assuming they do cancel it!).
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We've booked to go to Faro in February 2010 from East Midlands as it is our local airport. After Easyjet's announcement we feel extremely disappointed that Easyjet cannot at least tell us something NOW! By December it will be far too late to book anything new and no doubt the prices would all be greatly inflated by then. If alternative flights to Luton etc are offered, - why should we pay for the difference in petrol and parking? We've also noticed that the flights from Luton where much cheaper than the ones we paid for at East Midlands - would we get a refund in the difference in price here? Any information now would be appreciated!
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my partner and i booked to go to Benidorm in march 2010, it was an online booking and the travel company arranged easy jet for the flight, ive paid a deposit but currently if easy jet quit east mids we cannot get a flight on the same day from our next nearest airport / birmingham, where do we stand on this as im due to pa the remaining money in early december, we thought booking early would benefit us , it looks like wed have been better waiting til closer to the date and taken our chances,!!
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further to my last blog, webooked via an online agent who put us with easyjet does this alter our rights? im not sure as we booked a package deal,to make the whole process easier,
i also fly with my company and will be making sure that easy jet are off the list of preffered airlines if they do close operations @ east mids,
thanks for nothing easyjet.
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I have booked to take my wife and 2 young daughters on their 1st foreign holiday to Portugal at Easter 2010, from East Midlands. I spent ages looking for a reasonably priced holiday that was not in school term time. We booked on 4th September, the day after Easyjet's announcement, which we had not heard. I would happily travel to Luton for peace of mind that the holiday will actually take place but cannot do this without a huge financial cost. It is criminal that Easyjet accepted our booking without warning us of their decision to eventually pull out of East Midlands. I've tried to complain on their website but even the responses are automated!
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I fully understand easyjet is restricted by the 90 day legal limit for consultation but surely they should have operated the flag system and all flights not covered by the flag should stand. This is a p/r nightmare but LCC's think they can do what they wish. What goes round comes round and customers will look to book elsewhere.Wherever possible I avoid Ryanair due to its baggage policy.
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BE WARNED: This Easyjet scam is not only happening at the East Midlands Airport BUT AT LUTON AIRPORT AS WELL!...
My partner and I travel frequently between Luton and Athens on Easyjet. At the end of September we booked THREE flights on this particular route for the coming winter of 2009/10. A week later, at the beginning of October, we went on-line to book another flight on the same route, only to find that THE ROUTE IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE and has been removed from the Easyjet timetable as from 15/11/09! So, WHY did they sell us tickets only A FEW DAYS before the route is cancelled?... Don't tell me that they didn't know that this was about to happen at that stage!
We have NOT been informed by e-mail, or by phone, that our flights no longer exist. When we went to Easyjet's "booking confirmation" section, on their website, we were informed that our flights have been "DISRUPTED"!... Ha, Ha! Very funny!... HAVING ONE'S FLIGHT CANCELLED IS MUCH MORE THAN A DISRUPTION!
In disgust we chose the "refund" option on the same web page - but it was blocked, telling us that our "login details were incorrect"... THEY WERE NOT INCORRECT! We each have separate Easyjet accounts and exactly the same blocking action happened to both of us.
We desperately need an IMMEDIATE refund on our 3 flights and also on our 100 pound Easyjet parking fee - but we have no idea of how to go about getting it. This whole situation is extremely stressful for us (we are pensioners) and it is ruining all our winter plans.
Does anyone know of an ACTUAL EASYJET PHONE NUMBER, where one can talk to A LIVE HUMAN BEING about this issue? We have wasted so much time trying the "contact us" option, where all one gets is an INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING and useless, automated reply that doesn't help AT ALL!
Also, has anyone heard if Easyjet is going BUST?... It certainly seems that way to us - and I have to say that we'd much rather pay for sheduled flights and travel less often in the future, than to ever have to go through this hellish nightmare with Easyjet again!
PLEASE, "Watchdog"... we need a war against Easyjet!
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Great news that I can get a refund or transfer my easy jet flight. The only problem is how ? I have two flights booked , one of which I want to transfer to another flight from a different airport and one I want to cancel. The website tries to charge me as normal and after holding for 10minutes on the ' customer service ' line I gave up. Any ideas ?
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I have booked flights for 9 of us for March flying out from East Midlands to Palma after being told the Flights from Luton were not taking place this winter. The very next day it is announced that they are pulling out of East Midlands. Our hotels are booked so quite concerned over having to wait until December.
Now we are told by Watchdog that we can get transfered or refund. Has anyone tried to contact them successfully regarding this if so please tell me how they did it.
Watchdog please sort them out !!
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I am booked to fly out from East Midlands to Malaga with easyjet mid January, watchdog report that easy jet has now agreed to offer a refund or change of airport to such clients.
I have searched the easy jet website and there are no indications of how to achieve this, can anyone help?
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I am booked to fly out from East Midlands to Malaga with easyjet mid January, watchdog now report that easy jet has now agreed to offer a refund or change of airport to such clients.
I have searched the easy jet website and there are no indications of how to achieve this, can anyone help?
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Ok, well I have managed to get Easyjet to refund my flights from EMA.
Here's what I did:-
I sent them an email them from the help system here
http://easyjet.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/easyjet.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php?p_sid=wsFE-sLj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NTYsNTYmcF9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PWVtYWls&p_srch=1
saying that 'as they had announced the ability to get a refund' how did I go about it ?
They replied saying 'as a goodwill gesture' passengers booked from EMA in 2010 could either have a reroute via Stansted/Luton or a full refund. To request a reroute I should call the customer service number but to request a refund, all I needed to do was to reply confirming that a refund was required.
I did that and they replied next day confirming that the refund would be credited to my card with 5-10 days. I havent got it yet but that was only yesterday.
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On the 16/09/2009 I booked a flight for myself and a mate to Geneva for our yearly Snowboard trip. We are due to fly out from EMA 09/01/2010 arriving back to EMA 16/01/2010. There was no notice at the time of booking about there plans to close the flights out of EMA, if there had been I would have NEVER! booked. The very same night of booking the flight I also took advantage of the cheap deals offered on both car hire at Geneva airport and hotel in Chamoinx ski resort. A few days later they announce they are planning on pulling out of EMA!!!
I think the public should have more rights over situations like this as big names like Easyjet think they can just do as they please with the public. Its always the innocent public that is left to pick up the pieces while they get away with it.
We have always used Easyjet on our trips to the snow 3 or 4 times a season as we have to keep to a budget! If they mess this one up, rest assured! I will NEVER! NEVER! fly with them again. I'd sooner pay the extra and fly with [airline removed] a true airline that takes pride in there customers.
Please help us Watchdog, if anyone can help its you, makes us proud!!
and put an end to this penny pinching situation.
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We had our returned flights cancelled 3 days before going on holiday (a journey between Bari and Rome). All efforts to get the costs of our flights (booked with another carrier as there was no alternative Easyjet flight) reimbursed and the compensation as outlined by an EU directive (because it was less than 2 weeks)have been fruitless. They have a faulty email system which is almost impossible to find - similarly their phone number which is impossible to find and if you do find it it will cost you 10p a minute. Scandalous
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Well if you people have booked for 2010, you at least have some time left.
My husband and I were supposed to fly out tomorrow from Geneva to East Midlands and nope, flight canceled for "technical reasons" yes we got the cost refunded but I couldn't book up with another company as the prices have meanwhile gone way to high for a 24 hrs business trip to visit our customers at a big craft show in Birmingham.
It's really great to let people book up their flights a whole planning is made and then you're just getting dropped. for us this means a lots of sorry's to our customers and guess who's getting looked at by not appearing? Well not easy jet you can bet.
We've been using easy jet for years and had numerous problems and this is just the icing on the cake and we'll definitely never fly with them again.
If you're planning well in advance, take KLM as they offer meanwhile good prices. Unfortunately you'll always have a transfer at amsterdam, but always better then being left with no flight at all.
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I followed MR IW's advice from 27Oct - we were going to venice from EMA in Feb and like others nned to know as dates fixed with our leave. Easyjet, to be fair, replied quickly and credited account within 3 days.
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My wife and myself have booked return flights fron EMA to Malaga in February 2010, which we now wish to cancel, as going from another airport is not acceptable to us, I have e mailed easyjet twice in the last 2 weeks to request a refund and they have failed to acknowledge this request. What can I do?
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I posted comments on 17 Nov 2009 regarding my failure to get refunds from easyjet for flights booked in Feb 2010. This is still awaiting moderation. Is this kind of delay normal? In the meantime,I have tried to follows IW's advice but this has been unsuccessful as the address of eastjet.custhelp.com was not recognised by my server.
I entered this site expecting to recieve some help or advice from Watchdog but so far nothing has been forthcoming. Am I wromg to expect such assistance as an e mail address or telephone number for easy jet, since they (easyjet)do not supply these details.
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