Couple forced to pay £800 after EasyJet flight leaves 122 people behind over EU airport rules

Two of the 122 easyJet passengers left stranded in Milan have come forward with a wallet-stinging story.

Thanks to the the new Entry Exit System (EES) implemented across major European airports, travelling across the cloudy skies to warmer climes has instantly become harder work than ever for Brits.

Just this week, a bunch of people journeying back to Manchester from the Italian capital were disastrously delayed by the EES process at the airport, which needed them to register their names, travel documents, and biometric data (fingerprints and facial images), plus a whole host of other time-consuming tasks.

Despite arriving at the airport three hours prior to departure time, over 100 didn't make it onto the aircraft due to queues, and were essentially abandoned by the aforementioned airline.

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Speaking to LADbible, one of this unlucky bunch revealed of his experience: "My girlfriend and I did manage to get home the next day after borrowing money from my parents.

"It's cost us nearly £600 just for those flights which were at a different airport. We also had to pay for travelling, hotel and food and drinks. This nearly totalled £800."

Apparently, easyJet is not offering any form of compensation, believing the responsibility to be solely on the airport.

"I would agree, however, easyJet could have waited a bit longer for us to get through as they only waited 25 minutes after the plane was due to leave," he went on to argue.

"Online they are saying they waited 50 minutes but that is false as we were told to get out of the queue as the plane had left. We are also struggling to get our travel insurance to cover us as they want in writing from easyJet that they cancelled the flight, but they didn't cancel it as they still left with around 30 passengers.

"When explaining our situation to these companies it feels like we are not being listened to and we just get sent in circles."

The passenger claimed that easyJet promised to wait for everybody to complete the EES check-ins before leaving for Manchester.

"At 11:25 while we were all getting close to the gate, we were told that the flight has just left. We were then not being told what to do and stood in a queue full of people who are trying to get on different flights.

"We eventually got pulled out of the queue and were slowly taken to gather our hold luggage. My thoughts on this are that the time it took to take everyone's luggage back off the plane, we would have had most people on the flight."

Things got worse from there as the couple were then informed at the easyJet desk that an all-inclusive hotel would become available to them if their next flight was several days away... only for this to never come to fruition.

Of course, it wasn't just these individuals who were on the receiving end of this cock-up.

"There were some passengers who were travelling with a child who had autism, they were left worried not knowing what to do," he added. "There was a young couple, both 17, and the girl was sick and just left to fend for themselves."