Dad who sent bailiffs to Luton Airport receives £4,500 after Wizz Air cancels holiday at last-minute

A family whose holiday was forcibly cancelled at the last minute got their money plus extra after sending bailifs to Luton Airport.

Russell Quirk, 55, decided to take action after Wizz Air cancelled the family's scheduled flight just three hours before take-off. The cancellation left them £3,900 out of pocket after Russell was forced to buy a new, last-minute flight to Portugal, despite the fact his seats were initially booked four months in advance.

The family feared that they would miss out on their summer holiday and be down £6,000 due to hotel and travel costs. Russell, who was travelling with his three daughters and his wife, only found out his flights with Wizz Air were cancelled after an email was sent to him three hours prior.

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Russell, who owns a property PR agency, said: “I had no alternative. I could either take the best available alternative or lose out on £6,000. I booked the flights in January 2022 for the flights on May 30, 2022. They were to Faro in Portugal. We go there a lot, we’ve been there several times.

"We choose an airline on the availability and the price. We locked in what we thought would be our flights. Then they cancelled it three hours before we left the house.

"We got up at 4am, to leave at 4.30am. I checked my emails and low and behold it was a very bland, standard email saying that our flights were cancelled.

"We were all ready, the bags were downstairs and the cabs were called. I don’t know how airlines work, neither do Wizz Air it seems. It's utterly ridiculous that they couldn’t see the demand.

“The only flight I could find was out from British Airways which cost roughly £2,700, four times as much as the