Leeds Family Faces £1,600 Bill After easyJet Flight Departs Milan Without Them
A family from Leeds has been forced to spend more than £1,600 to find their own way home after easyJet flew out of Milan without them and over 100 other passengers. The passengers were left stranded due to extensive delays at passport control, which were caused by the newly launched European Union entry-exit system.
Early Arrival at Airport Proves Futile
Max Hume, 56, his wife Lynsey, 46, and their 13-year-old son Archie arrived at Milan Linate airport nearly three hours before their Sunday morning flight to Manchester. They had good reason to be early, as on their way into Italy a week earlier, they had already spent over an hour in passport control queues. Despite arriving with plenty of time, they still missed their flight.
Of the 156 passengers booked on easyJet flight 5420 to Manchester, only 34 made it on board. The remaining 122 were left behind in Italy, highlighting the scale of the disruption.
Passport Control Chaos and Biometric Confusion
The trouble began when the family reached passport control at 9:15 am. Frontier officers refused to process Manchester-bound passengers because a gate had not yet been assigned to their flight. During the same period, passengers travelling to London on British Airways and another easyJet service were waved through, while the Manchester group waited in a stationary queue in the heat. Lynsey Hume nearly fainted, and another passenger was sick.
When processing finally began, officers demanded full biometric registration from every traveller, including fingerprint scans and facial recognition. This was despite the fact that the same data had already been collected on arrival in Italy the previous week. EU rules state that once both biometrics have been registered, only one should be required on subsequent crossings.
Two officers worked a single machine while 16 automated machines nearby sat unused, exacerbating the delays.
Flight Departs, No Support from Airline
By the time the family cleared passport control, the plane had gone. At the gate, they were told a bus would take them to their luggage and that hotel accommodation would be arranged. However, no staff were waiting at baggage reclaim. When Lynsey Hume approached the easyJet desk, she was told the family had been logged as no-shows and that nothing could be done.
EasyJet's live chat informed Max Hume that what happens at passport control is not the airline's responsibility. The only option offered was a paid transfer to the next available flight to Manchester, five days away, at £110 per person.
Costly Journey Home
The family searched for alternatives. Train tickets were priced at £500 each for a journey lasting a full day. One-way car hire came to £5,000. They eventually booked connecting flights through Luxembourg with an overnight hotel stay at a combined cost of around £1,600. One of Max Hume's credit cards reached its limit covering the expense.
He said he felt gutted, shattered, and considerably poorer. He added that around 100 stranded passengers have told him they will never use easyJet again.
Airline and Industry Responses
EasyJet said it had advised passengers to allow extra time at the airport and had held flights where possible to give people more time to clear the queues. It said free transfers had been offered to affected passengers and described the border delays as outside its control.
The EU entry-exit system launched on Friday. It requires non-EU travellers, including British citizens, to register biometric data at European borders. Airlines for Europe called on border authorities that same day to suspend the system entirely when queues reach unacceptable levels.
The Association of British Insurers warned travellers that standard travel insurance is unlikely to cover losses caused by EES-related delays and advised anyone affected to contact their airline first.
