Fly-maybe?

Monday 07 September 2015

Islanders have been complaining after suffering long airport delays this summer waiting for Flybe to take off.

One family's trip to visit relations in the UK during the school holidays was ruined by the airline's repeated delays and cancellations.

Louise Bolla, her husband and two young children were due to fly to East Midlands Airport at the end of last month but checked in to find they had a two and a half hour delay for "operational" reasons.

But it was at the end of their week away that the family found themselves grounded - they arrived at the Airport to be told their flight back home was cancelled for technical reasons.

They were then in for an even longer wait while they were re-booked onto another flight the following morning from Birmingham Airport and put up in a hotel nearby.

Louise said: "They said they would re-book us on the next available flight but there were no available flights that day.

"It took six and a half hours to sort it out with no food vouchers and very little information until they had re-booked us onto flights and sorted accommodation for that night."

They finally arrived at the hotel at 11pm – too late to get a proper meal as the hotel’s restaurant had closed.

Louise said: “When we arrived at the hotel the communication was very poor as we had to go through a handling agent and when we first arrived at the hotel were told we were going to have to pay.”

The hotel finally accepted that the airline was going to pay and the family had some room service sandwiches and a quick night’s sleep before getting up early to head off to Birmingham Airport.

But when they got to check-in they were told that the pilot was sick and the airline was getting another one to come in and fly the plane.

They had another three hour wait at the Airport before the plane finally took off. The family have since got compensation for all the delays but they're not the only ones to complain about Flybe's current service.

Jan Newlands has put in a complaint after spending hours longer than she expected trying to get to and from Birmingham last week.

She said: “I think the service is deteriorating this summer. I don’t have an axe to grind with Flybe. I’ve used them for a long long time.

"It appears that this year they are running very short at the moment, trying to start new routes off and pick up holiday trade but I think they should focus more on their regular customers because they are the ones they can depend on.”

Flybe have been unavailable for comment so haven't confirmed whether their 'operational delays' were the result of them being short staffed.