The Hume family from Leeds woke extra early on Sunday morning to leave their Italian ski resort for Milan Linate airport. On their outbound journey from Manchester, Max Hume, 56, his wife Lynsey, 46, and their 13-year-old son Archie had queued for over an hour at passport control on arrival in Italy.
Heeding the advice from easyJet to allow ample time to get through departure formalities, they arrived at the terminal nearly three hours before their flight back to Manchester was due to leave.
But due to chaotic enforcement of the EU entry-exit system, they watched their plane depart without them – with more than 100 other passengers left behind.
After staff working for easyJet said the family would have to pay £330 to be rebooked on the next available flight, five days later, they spent over £1,600 for a connecting flight via Luxembourg – which will see them arriving 24 hours late.
Speaking to The Independent as they boarded the flight to Luxembourg, Mr Hume said he felt “gutted, upset, let down, absolutely shattered and poorer – much poorer”.
Of the 156 passengers said to be booked on easyJet flight 5420 to Manchester, it is believed only 34 boarded – leaving 122 behind in Italy.
EasyJet said it is “sorry for any inconvenience caused” and that stranded passengers will be offered free transfers to alternative flights.
Mr Hume, a teacher in West Yorkshire, said that after checking in their luggage, the family arrived at passport control at 9.15am. At the time only a handful of passengers were ahead of them. But as a gate had not yet been assigned for the Manchester flight, staff said they could not get their passports checked. “The two people working there wouldn’t let us through, even though there was nobody going through passport control, because the gate hadn’t been released,” he said.
But passengers who were booked on the other “non-Schengen” flights on Sunday morning – two on British Airways to Heathrow, and an easyJet flight to Gatwick – were allowed through.
Mr Hume said: “People were arriving late for those London flights and they were just letting them through while holding us back.”
His wife nearly passed out in the heat, while a fellow passenger was sick into a bag. It appears that at least some of the passengers who made it onto the Manchester flight had simply lied and said they were going to London in order to be allowed through passport control.
Finally the Manchester passengers started to be processed. Inexplicably, the frontier officials were demanding fingerprints and facial biometrics from all travellers – even though they had been collected on the way into Italy a week earlier. The EU entry-exit system rules stipulate that once both biometrics have been registered, only one should be taken on subsequent arrivals and departures.
Mr Hume said: “There were two officers and one biometric machine. We had to do face scan, passport scan, and fingerprints. Every single person. But there were about 16 machines that could have been used automatically, and they didn’t open them. So everything was going at a snail’s pace.”
When they eventually got through, the flight had departed – but only after offloading all the baggage belonging to missing passengers.
At the gate, the passengers were told there was a bus to luggage collection and that they would be put up in a hotel.
A bus took them to baggage reclaim – but no staff were waiting to help them. Lynsey Hume asked for help at the easyJet desk, only to be told the family had been recorded as “no-shows” and nothing could be done for them
Meanwhile her husband tried easyJet’s live chat service. He was told: “The process passenger needs to go through at the airport is not our responsibility and if it resulted in passengers being late to their flight, the only way we can help is through a rescue transfer.” This is the option to transfer to another flight at a price of £110 per person.
After spending £432 on the homeward flight, Mr Hume was offered a refund of £19.91 – representing the tax element of the ticket. EasyJet has kept the remaining money.
The family then set about finding alternative transport home. “Flights disappeared while we were searching,” Mr Hume said. “Trains were £500 each and took a full day. Car hire one-way was £5,000.
“So in the end we booked flights to Luxembourg, a hotel overnight, then a flight to Manchester the next morning. That’s cost about £1,600 so far. One of my credit cards is now maxed out.
“We’ll land around 11am tomorrow, then still have to drive home. I’ll miss work.
“I’ll try to claim on insurance, but I really feel this shouldn’t be an insurance job. The airline should take responsibility. There’s now 100 of us who won’t ever use easyJet again.”
At least one other family who had been left behind in Milan by easyJet was on the Luxair flight to Luxembourg.
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “We are aware that some passengers departing from Milan Linate today experienced longer than usual waiting times at passport control and we advised customers due to fly to allow additional time to make their way through the airport.
“We have been doing all possible to minimise the impact of the airport queues, holding flights to allow customers extra time and providing free flight transfers for any customers who may have missed their flight including EJU5420 to Manchester.
“We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while EES is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers.
“While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused.”
On Friday, the first day of full entry-exit system implementation, the Brussels-based trade association Airlines for Europe demanded “border control authorities must be allowed to fully suspend the EES when waiting times become excessive”.
The Independent has asked the European Commission, the Department for Transport, the Foreign Office, Linate airport and the Milan Border Police for comment.
Read more: From ‘EES minus’ to ‘EES plus’ – this is the inconsistent reality of Europe’s border lottery
