Happy EasyChristmas -- without a ski lift

EasyJet has become a swearword in our family.

That's because they cancelled both our outgoing and incoming flights.

With the first cancellation, they ruined our ski break. With the second, they ruined our Christmas.

We've now more or less recovered, but we'll never, and I mean NEVER again fly EasyJet. They are useless idiots who have no consideration for their passengers. They simply shouldn't be in business.

It all started with about 2 cms of snow on Dec 18. We, along with thousands of other passengers, made it to Gatwick just fine.

We checked in and we were told to wait in the lounge while the runway was being de-iced. After two hours of waiting, things became a bit suspicious, with BA and all other airlines opening gates and flying happily in all directions, with minimum cancellations. Only Easyjet passengers were told stubbornly to "PLEASE WAIT".

It didn't bode well. And there was the added complication that Daniel was not very happy to wait in the departure lounge for four hours. Quite understandably: I had woken him up at 0345. So by then he was a bit noisy and demanding. And I was grumpy, too. Quite understandably: I had just emerged from four night shifts in a row, with an accumulated sleep deficit of over 20 hours.

Eventually we were told Easyjet was cancelling all flights in the morning. That included at least 15 flights from Gatwick North, if not more. We were ushered down long corridors to the arrivals area to reclaim our checked-in luggage that appeared on the carousels as it we had just arrived. To add insult to injury we also had to queue up for passport control. It was bizarre, not even having left the airport.

Having cleared customs, thousands of disgruntled Easyjet passengers were keen to rebook their flights at the EasyJet desk. We didn't even try. The scenes were utterly disgraceful.

Instead, we collected out car and drove home. By then, almost all the snow had melted.

Back home, I first tried to rebook the canceled flight online. No luck -- EasyJet's web site said our flights could not be transferred because they were in the past! Exactly!

Next, I tried the one-pound per minute Easyjet customer service telephone line. Couldn't get through -- the automated message I got was along the lines of "We're experiencing an unexpected volume of calls. Your waiting time would be over 30 minutes so we now have to disconnect your call."

It would raise any unfortunate traveler's blood pressure, not being able to contact an airline under these circumstances. So imagine what I felt when, a few hours later, I did get through on the phone, after a 20-odd minute wait, only to be "helped" by an Easyjet staff trying to engage in small talk -- at £1 a minute. "How interesting? How do you pronounce that name? Just our of interest, is it a Turkish name?"

I really should have resisted the temptation. But I just couldn't. I know I wasted another pound, lecturing him why a customer's nationality had absolutely no relevance to the rebooking of this flight. Ah, and geography, as well -- you would have thought Easyjet customer "helpers" are given some basic training as to where European cities are located... no, why should they be? That said idiot argued with me, unsuccessfully, that Munich was so far-a-far-away from Innsbruck that it shouldn't be considered as an alternative. So much further away than Salzburg, he said. Yes, right, why don't they teach them to use a map?

Anyway, outgoing flights were rebooked for 20 Dec.. that effectively cut our ski break to three days from five, but at that point we thought it was still worth it.

We would have never gone with it if we had known that EasyJet would also cancel our incoming flight. But there we were, Xmas Eve morning, 0830, Innsbruck airport: FLIGHT CANCELLED.

We couldn't believe our eyes. There were absolutely no weather issues at Gatwick, or Innsbruck.

We were given two options: either take a flight to Liverpool at 1335 or wait for a flight to Gatwick on Boxing Day.

In the end we chose Liverpool. Along with sixty other passengers, all of whom were convinced that Easyjet cancelled the Innsbruck to Gatwick flight because it was ony half-full. Anf they could be more or less sure that all of us would re-route to fill the insofar equally half-full Liverpool flight.

They did that to save money and maximise their profits, while blaming the weather. Utterly disgusting. Mind you, there were no words of apology on the Liverpool flight. To Easyjet, it's just business as usual.

Put simply, I wanted to go back to the hotel and do Xmas in Austria, and charge it on Easyjet or our travel insurance. But the majority of my family wanted to fly back. The kids wanted to be home for Xmas, and even I would have felt a bit guilty about calling in to say my flight had been cancelled .. I was scheduled to work on Xmas Day.

It was a total nightmare though, getting home. First, me, along with our 60 fellow sufferers, got on the two Internet terminals at Innsbruck airport to book cars from Liverpool to Gatwick. One way rentals, last minute, cost upwards of £250.

Not to mention the hassle. Picking up the car was a pain, with National's office being closed by the time we got there, my reservation being temporarily lost in the system, problems with the GPS, the child seat .. all lovely stuff, with increasingly loud screams of "NONO, WHAT'VE YOU DONE?" NOBODY WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND, EVER AGAIN" in the background.

I'm not much of a traditionalist, but driving down the M6 in thick fog and heavy traffic is the last thing I'd want to do on Xmas eve. Stopping at Burger King for Chicken Royale made me really, really sad. For this one day a year, I'm very happy to go with tradition: cooking a proper Xmas meal, opening presents and lighting the candles on the Xmas tree.

This last year, it was not to be: EasyJet made us celebrate EasyChristmas.

By Christmas Eve evening, I'd lost my sense of humour. Even worse, I took out all my frustration on my family when we eventually got home at 2130. It was bad: I blamed them for making the wrong decision. I really thought returning to lovely Wiesenhof would have made more sense -- we would had a much better Xmas. Ok, no presents - but lovely food, pampering in the spa, and a bit more skiing. Yes, a bit of anxiety as well about whether or not we'd be able to fly back on Boxing Day, and a bit of guilt about missing my Xmas Day shift -- but on the whole I was convinced it was the less bad option.

Instead, we were back home, utterly exhausted, late on Christmas Eve, with an awful "Xmas has been cancelled" kind of feeling. Next, Xmas Day started with husband returning rental car to Gatwick and collecting our own ... by the time he got home, there was a cab at our house, waiting to take me to work.

Eventually, we celebrated Xmas on Boxing Day. And Daniel wasn't happy with his presents!

He was so disappointed that over the next few days, he kept telling anyone who would listen, with a genuinely disturbed expression on his face "Do you know, Santa didn't bring me the present I wanted." Sympathetic adult: "What did you want?" D: "A ski lift".