PAX Say Jet2 Employed Bait-and-Switch to Trick Volunteers Into Bump

Castle Donington, UK - June 3, 2016: a Boeing 737-330QC (G-CELR) commercial passenger aircraft operated by Jet2 about to land at East Midlands Airport near Nottingham, England.

Thirty ticketed and confirmed Jet2 passengers claim they agreed to stay behind and take a later flight home based on broken promises and some outright falsehoods from the airline.

When a flight attendant unexpectedly took ill before a Jet2.com flight from Tenerife South Airport (TFS) to Edinburgh Airport (EDI), the airline eventually decided to take off minus one flight attendant. Because of aviation regulations, the decision to make the trip down one cabin crew member also meant that fewer passengers would be legally allowed on the flight. The carrier found itself in the position of having to find 30 volunteers to give up their seats to comply with the sudden reduction in capacity.

Initially, the prospect seemed like it would end up being a win for everyone involved; the airline would avoid cancelling a flight just because a flight attendant was out sick and the bulk of the passengers would be home as scheduled with only a brief delay. Those passengers who volunteered to stay behind would get a seat on the very next flight to EDI, after spending a free night in paradise. The few who gave up their seats for the good of the many were even promised a free round-trip ticket for their act of selflessness.

Unfortunately, things didn’t exactly turn out as hoped for those left behind.

Many of the 30 passengers who agreed to wait until the next day to fly home tell the Sunday Mail that the airline attempted to worm out of the deal almost immediately. Rather than being booked on a flight to Edinburgh the next morning as promised, passengers say that they were instead flown home on a late Sunday evening flight to East Midlands Airport (EMA) and then bussed to EDI.

“As soon as the flight took off, they couldn’t care less,” passenger Iain MacLellan told the Mail’s Alan McEwen. “I think they just wanted to get it away before it hit the three hours late mark and they faced paying ­compensation. There are worse ways to spend a day than in Tenerife but we really feel like we’ve been conned.”

To make matters worse, MacLellan claims that the agreed-upon round-trip airfare voucher was quietly reduced to a much less enticing voucher good for only a one-way trip. He also said that the airline promised to cover the cost of an extra day of long-term parking, but when it came time to pay, the ultra-low-fare carrier simply gave him the runaround.

“Due to a member of our cabin crew becoming ill, we operated our flight on Saturday with a reduced number of customers in order to meet safety regulations, a Jet2 spokesperson told the newspaper in a statement. “Our team arranged accommodation in Tenerife for affected customers, and we are doing everything we can to look after them and ensure they get home. We would like to apologize to all affected customers.”