A family from Sheffield described their return from a holiday in Turkey as a 'journey from hell' after their easyJet flight was cancelled twice, leaving the mother to take over the airport Tannoy to calm stranded passengers.
Lee McGreevy, 43, his wife Carla, 44, and their 17-year-old son Ethan had spent a week in Icmeler, Turkey. They arrived at Dalaman Airport on Saturday, 22 August, for their return flight to Bristol, but after waiting more than two hours at the gate, the flight was cancelled. Passengers were told the plane had a technical issue, and a fire engine was seen beside the aircraft.
The family was rebooked onto a flight to Manchester scheduled for the early hours of Tuesday, 25 August. After spending 14 hours at the airport, the new flight was repeatedly delayed. Passengers eventually reached the gate, waited another two hours, and were then told the flight was cancelled again.
Mum steps in to calm panicked passengers
By this point, Lee and his family had spent 27 hours dealing with the chaos. Carla helped panicked passengers by making announcements over the Tannoy. "My wife had to step up to the Tannoy to calm down a crowd of panicked passengers because easyJet had no presence on the ground," Lee told creatorzine.com.
"It felt like absolute Groundhog Day – utter disgust, total exhaustion and sheer frustration," he added. "Experiencing a gate cancellation once is distressing, but watching it happen a second time after being awake for 27 straight hours pushes you to your absolute physical and mental limit."
Carla had previously assisted ground staff during the first cancellation and was asked to use the Tannoy to explain passport and baggage procedures. Lee said his wife became an "unofficial, unpaid representative" for easyJet, with TikTok clips showing her addressing the crowd.
Passengers fall ill and crew unfit to fly
Passengers were reportedly told by the pilot that the inbound crew had exceeded their working hours and the aircraft needed an emergency stop in Milan for a replacement crew. The ordeal worsened when several passengers fell ill after landing. Lee claimed six people vomited, and cabin crew members also became unwell. The plane was deemed unfit for passengers, with the crew too unwell to fly.
Lee alleged the announcements prompted "pure chaos" as frustrated passengers demanded answers. He claimed no easyJet representatives were present, leaving Turkish ground staff to handle the incident.
The family was offered an indirect journey via Edinburgh, involving a six-hour wait, a connecting flight to Gatwick, and an Uber to Bristol to collect their car before driving home to Sheffield. Lee claimed other passengers affected by the first cancellation were offered direct flights, saying: "After being cancelled a second time, easyJet showed zero empathy."
Family left out of pocket and exhausted
The family was initially placed in a hotel near Dalaman Airport, but Lee claimed they were served old chips for breakfast and had to pay extra for basic drinks outside meal times. He said they spent more than £100 on meals at nearby restaurants, around £30 on canned drinks, and more than £200 on food, drinks, Wi-Fi, and power banks.
"My priority was just keeping my family safe, fed and sane," the father said. "I couldn't believe the complete lack of basic human empathy from easyJet, leaving families stranded repeatedly with zero real-time updates."
He claimed passengers had been left lying on the airport floor, with others in tears as departure times repeatedly changed before the cancellations. "The rollercoaster of flight updates – delays jumping from two hours, to four hours, down to one hour, back to four, then six, before two final cancellations – was psychological torture," Lee said.
EasyJet was approached for comment. A spokesperson said: "We are very sorry for the family's experience when returning from their holiday in Dalaman when their original flight home was unable to operate due to the aircraft requiring an engineering inspection, and their rebooked flight being cancelled due to the crew being unfit to operate."
"The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is our highest priority and our crew have a responsibility in line with safety regulations to declare if they do not feel fit to operate. We take our customer welfare responsibilities seriously and while our easyJet holidays on holiday support team arranged hotel accommodation and meals for the duration of their delay, and rebooked them alternative flights to Bristol, we fully understand the difficulty this will have caused."
The spokesperson added: "We are in touch with the family to apologise, ensure they are reimbursed for any expenses and understand more about their experience at the gate, which we will be looking into with the airport as this is not the level of support we expect for our customers."
