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A dad claims he had to miss his entire holiday to EasyJet, after his easyJet flight was cancelled when his family had already boarded the plane. The "gutted" father had booked time off work for the trip.

Alan Kennedy, 55, was set to fly from Belfast International to Schipol Airport in the Netherlands with his wife and teenage children on Saturday. But, having already sat down on the plane they were informed it would not fly.

The dad-of-two alleges that the safety demonstration had already occurred when the pilot indicated their holiday wouldn’t go ahead on the tannoy, reports BelfastLive.

READ MORE: Couple kicked off easyJet flight after row over luggage size at airport

He claimed: "I'm from Carrickfergus, and we were going to Amsterdam for four nights – myself, my wife and two kids, both teenagers. We were flying with EasyJet, from Belfast International.

"Last night it showed that the flight was delayed by half an hour on the board, but when we actually got on to the flight it was delayed by longer than that. It was delayed by over an hour. The flight was meant to go out at 6.50pm, but when we were in the airport it was delayed to 7.35pm.

"So, whenever we boarded we were sitting on the plane and it was past 8pm then, and they had done the safety demonstration and everything. The pilot then came out, and that was the only indication we had, across the tannoy and said there's an 11pm curfew in Schipol Airport in Amsterdam."

Alan continued: "Even though we'd have got there before 11pm because they couldn't get turned around to leave again before 11pm. That was the only indication we've had from EasyJet, other than an email from them last night – because we'd booked a package with them, a hotel as well – saying that they'd give us a refund for the flight and the hotel.

"Now, we'd booked other things as well. We'd booked our train transfer, we'd booked trips, and it cost me £50 to stay in the airport for the extra time last night because I'd booked my car in."

Having lost out financially, the dad also says he has wasted the days of annual leave he used for the trip.

He alleged: "The strange thing is they hadn't started the engine, they hadn't started to taxi, when they had done the demonstration and then we saw the stewards starting to scurry up and down the aisle with phones in their hands so I thought there was something funny going on."

He added that fellow passengers claimed they'd also faced Amsterdam cancellations earlier that week, although it's not clear whether this was for different reasons.

He added: "We are absolutely gutted that we were all sitting on the plane, ready to go, and then we had to get off the plane. It took an age to get off the plane which just made everyone a bit more irate. There was no EasyJet representative in the airport."

The father said that there was staff in the airport but they didn’t "know what was going on". He noted that the situation was confusing for everyone involved.

Alan added: "Our kids are 14 and 18 and the 18-year-old isn't going to want to go on too many holidays with his parents, that might have been one of our last holidays we would all go on. He's not going to Krakow with us."

Daily Star has contacted EasyJet for comment.

• Family holidays
• Easyjet
• Holidays from Hell

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