It doesn't surprise me that Easyjet ended up cancelling a lot of flights - they have very short, fast turnarounds on their aircraft and even quite short delays soon cumulatively mount up and quite rapidly nearly all their planes would end up out of place at the wrong airports at the wrong times. Their schedulers must have had a nightmare few days. I would think that there's a good chance that delayed or stranded passengers wouldn't get much in the way of compensation either - I suspect that adverse weather on the scale that we've been experiencing would be regarded as 'an act of God' and outwith the control of the airlines. Not much consolation to those who've had their travel plans wrecked.

SM

I keenly watched the easyjet website for cancellations as we were due to go to Prague from Bristol over the New Year. I must say their website had a list of cancelled flights and a link to subscribe to updates on the flight situ by e-mail. I thought they were very efficient. Each cancelled flight had a choice of two links depending on whether you wanted a refund or free transfer. I'm happy to report that our outward and return flights went ahead despite the awful weather. We were a bit late taking off on the return journey as the plane had to be de-iced at the top of the runway as we all sat patiently in the aircraft. we were over the wing and were fascinated by the procedure.

I logged in from our hotel on the morning of our return as our son said they'd had snow and ice over here. Although a few flights had been cancelled, my mind was put at rest when ours was on schedule. Hopefully everything worked out ok for others.

We are going on a criuse in several weeks which leaves on a wednesday which this week was the worst day at the airports. Does anybody know what happens if you are unable to get to the ship before departure time. Thanks

Sunbody

It's pretty safe to say the ship won't wait (unless everyone on the cruise is on the same delayed flight!). What happens next very much depends on the cruise company, how you booked it and your insurance.

If you have booked a proper fly-cruise package then there ought to be a clause for this buried on the T&Cs and the company should have some liability. What is practical will vary from case to case, if the next port isn't too far away you may be able to catch up but if you were flying out to NY to get QM2 back to Southampton there wouldn't be a lot of point chasing it!

If you booked the cruise seperately and then sorted out your own flights it's your problem and you need to check your insurance as well as the T&Cs. If you miss the ship you'll need to know who to contact straight away even if you can catch it up later.

As for the original comments about easyjet, I think part of their "problem" is that they are a bit too organised and honest for their own good sometimes! They have a clear policy of not letting problems mount up and knock on to further flights and days, so as soon as it is obvious that there will be big delays they write off large lumps of their plan and then announce it to the world. Whereas other airlines will "umm and ahh" and cancel flights one at a time when people have been stood at the airport for hours - at midday easyjet look bad but when you count up the totals at midnight the others may well have quietly caught them up. The other issue is how they handle people who have been cancelled. Easyjet's policy (used by several others) means that these people may have to wait several days for a flight with seats. I must admit I've benefited from this when Liverpool was closed the day (a Sunday) before I was due to travel. On my Monday, the airport was open, the planes were still in the right place at the right time, everything is running to plan and I'm away no problems - but some of the Sunday passengers had to wait until Tuesday for a seat. Contrast this with Eurostar (who use airline systems) before Christmas. They cancelled whole days and then when the trains started running again they turned away people booked for that day in order to move those who had been stranded - which of these policies is fairest very much depends upon which day your ticket was for!

Our flight home with EasyJet from Barcelona was cancelled on Tuesday. We had got through security before any of use knew anything about the weather conditions, and my Mum rang to tell me Liverpool airport was closed. We were told we were all waiting to board, and rumours were going around the flight was listed as cancelled on the internet, rang Mum back and found out this was correct, it was another half an hour before it was announced in the airport.

We had to go transfer our tickets which was totally unorganised, was told to que in one place, then the que moved so we ended up at the back with less chance of getting on a flight. In the end we were transferred to a flight to Bristol later on the same day and promised a coach back up to Liverpool.

Got to Bristol, was told by the Easyjet desk to go get something to eat and there would be an announcement when the coach was there. Got on the coach, and half an hour later stopped outside a hotel, everybody else had been booked into this hotel for the night with the hope of getting a coach back the next day. We knew nothing about it, and there was no EasyJet representative on the coach to ask. Luckily the manager of the hotel was great and just booked us in, but trying to get in touch with EasyJet to find out what was going on was a nightmare. 2 hours of phone calls it took, I don't even want to look at the phone bill. EasyJet customer service told me he couldn't help as he wasn't even in the same country as me...great. Bristol Airport told me to ring EasyJet. Eventually found out what was going on and go the coach the next day. EasyJet were not interest though when we were the stranded in Liverpool the next day because our transport organised for the previous day was now unavailable.

Overall, I was glad to get home, albeit 40 hours after we left our hotel in Barca. I think the main problem was a lack of communication, the hotel we were put up in was lovely so can't slate them for that.