A family who saved up for 12 months to go on holiday were denied their dream trip when Ryanair cancelled their flight – 45 minutes before boarding.
The Roffee family were due to fly to Spain to celebrate Simon’s 30th birthday when they were told at the gate in departures that their flight was grounded.
Kellie, 35, and her family had scrimped and saved for the £2,105 trip and stayed at home throughout the summer to afford the flights and four-star hotel stay.
Since ruining their plans on Tuesday last week Ryanair have refused to even apologise to the family, who remain out of pocket.
The Roffee family were due to fly to Spain to celebrate the 30th birthday of Simon (left) when they were told at the gate in departures that their flight was grounded
Kellie and Simon were due to go away with Casey, 15, Ella, 12, Ryan, 9, and Amelia-Rose, 5.
They wasted their whole day at Leeds Bradford Airport before driving back home to Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.
Kellie said: ‘We normally go away for a weekend camping and we couldn’t do it because we were saving up for this holiday; we won’t be getting a holiday this year.
‘We were waiting around the airport, the kids were really excited, we were sat in the VIP lounge and we heard this tannoy and they asking for everyone to go to gate four.
‘We were really excited thinking we were going to get there and they locked the doors and they said nobody was going anywhere.
‘It was 45 minutes before boarding, people were kicking off and they were really angry.
Kellie, a housewife and Simon, a maintenance worker for Lincoln Council, were promised a full refund from the airline as well as compensation
‘One woman was having a panic attack and was crying, we asked Ryanair if they were prepared to pay for another flight and they said that was absolutely not going to happen.
‘We were at the airport from 11am until 6pm, we wasted the whole day there.
‘I feel really bad like I have deprived my children of a holiday, the kids are devastated, absolutely distraught, the next morning my Amelia-Rose came in and asked us “are we off on holiday today then?”.
‘We’ve had no apology or anything from Ryanair.’
Kellie, a housewife and Simon, a maintenance worker for Lincoln Council, were promised a full refund from the airline as well as compensation.
The family paid £495 for the flights and £1,500 to stay at a four-star hotel
The family paid £495 for the flights and £1,500 to stay at the four-star Hotel Rocamarina as well as shelling out cash on children’s holiday clothes.
Ryanair are cancelling up to 50 flights-a-day for the next six weeks after it failed to correctly plan the pilots holiday rota.
The cancellations could affect up to almost 300,000 passengers who were offered alternative flights or refunds.
Kellie added: ‘We normally go for a week with the kids so next year we would like to go for two weeks somewhere really nice, somewhere a little bit more expensive.
‘Amelia-Rose was crying because she was scared, there was a bloke swearing and the police had to come and he almost got arrested.
‘We had bought all the holiday clothes and everything as well, so we have lost money and next summer the clothes won’t fit them.
‘My husband was coming with us and it was his 30th birthday. We had only had one day out throughout the entire summer holidays and that was to Flamingo Land.
‘As a parent I feel like I have I have failed my children, Ryanair offered us a flight on the 18 to come back on the 19, but even if we took the flight we would not have arrived until 10pm and we would have had to leave the hotel by 11am the next morning.
‘It was ridiculous, they just said “sorry, that’s all we can offer you”.’
Ryanair told Kellie that the £495 flights were refunded back to On The Beach but the travel agent have claimed it will take 28 working days to return the cash.
Kellie said: ‘Obviously we were going to rely on getting that money back it was meant to be back in the account this week.
‘We were going to take the kids away for the weekend, for a couple of days, and we’re not going to be able to do that so I’m going to have to let the kids down again.
‘We were expecting all that money and I just feel like crying, none of this is my fault and I end up spending half the day on the phone and they are rude to me.
‘If we wanted to book a last minute deal and fly off straight away we cant do that because they haven’t paid us.’
A Ryanair Spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘This flight from Leeds Bradford to Malaga was regrettably cancelled due to a French Air Traffic Control Strike.
‘The customers in question have been fully refunded. Ryanair sincerely apologised to all customers affected by this French ATC strike, which was completely beyond our control.’