I had to pay £500 to fly back home during my holiday after my airline refused to send my luggage
A MAN was forced to spend £500 flying back to the UK in the middle of his holiday after his airline refused to send his luggage with important equipment in it.
Kevin Openshaw and David Ayre booked their trip to Malta with EasyJet on February 4.
The pair had been looking forward to their two-week diving holiday, where they planned to explore the wrecks on the shore and then visit WW2 wrecks with a larger group.
But the trip was cut short for Kevin when he discovered he was missing a vital part of his diving kit, his rebreather.
He told Chronical Live that he quickly reported the missing item to Malta airport before discovering that the equipment had been stopped back in Manchester.
The luggage was thought to contain a diving cylinder “and nothing else.”
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Kevin was left with a decision to make, either carry on his holiday without the vital diving kit, or fly back to sort the issue out.
He revealed that the kit was worth £6,000, and he’d already forked out an additional £180 so that it could be safely transported as sports luggage – and renting it in Malta would set him back £14,000.
He decided to pay £500 to fly back to Manchester to try and retrieve the much-needed rebreather – and had to sleep in his car overnight before flying back to Malta.
Kevin said: “I had to go back and get it because the second part of the holiday cost £1,000 and if I didn’t have my unit that part of the holiday wouldn’t have happened.”
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He added that when he finally got the missing bag, there was a note on it that read: “This bag contains a large diving cylinder and nothing else. This bag can not travel. HBS Team Leader.”
David explained: “We didn’t know that the case was missing until we got to Malta airport and it wasn’t on the carousel.”
He said that he even offered to pay more to get it to him, but that wasn’t an option.
He added: “I lost four days of my holiday because by the time I got back to Malta on the Wednesday night I was in no fit state to go diving on the Thursday because of the amount of travelling I did.”
A Manchester Airport spokesperson said that they made “two announcements” asking him to return to security, and when he didn’t arrive, had to hold it as they couldn’t verify that it “did not contain compressed air”.
EasyJet commented: “The safety of our customers and crew is our highest priority and in line with security procedures we ask customers ahead of their flight to ensure they do not carry certain restricted items and to declare if they have any potentially restricted items in their luggage when checking in their bags.
“As Mr Openshaw did not declare his diving equipment to be able to confirm its safety for carriage, his bag had to be held by airport security staff.
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“We understand that attempts were made by the airport to reach Mr Openshaw to confirm the contents of his luggage, however as no response was received it could not be permitted to travel.
“We are in touch with Mr Openshaw to provide clear information on the process of transporting his equipment, ahead of his return flight.”