A Fife radio DJ has told how his daughter ended up in tears after three flights were cancelled during his family trip to Disneyland Paris.
Dave Connor, 44 – who is best known for presenting the breakfast show on Kingdom FM alongside Vanessa Motion – took a holiday to the iconic theme park to celebrate partner Jonelle’s 40th birthday.
They were joined by six-year-old daughter Olivia, who lives with Jonelle in Aberdeen.
But throughout their weekend trip, three separate British Airways flights were cancelled – leaving the family stuck at various locations along the way.
To make matters worse, they returned to Aberdeen Airport without their luggage.
‘Everything that could go wrong, did’ on Fife DJ’s Disneyland Paris trip
Dave, from Kirkcaldy, told The Courier: “Everything that could go wrong, did.
“Jonelle has always wanted to go to Disneyland and with it being a special birthday, I thought it would be great for us to finally go.
“We left on Thursday, flying from Aberdeen to Heathrow and then to Charles de Gaulle in Paris.
“But our flight from London to Paris was cancelled. We were able to get on a flight later in the day, but we had wanted to go on an earlier flight so we could spend the afternoon in the park.”
Despite the initial disruption, Dave, Jonelle and Olivia got to spend the weekend enjoying the rides and meeting their favourite characters.
But ahead of their planned return to the UK on Sunday, Dave woke up to more bad news.
He said: “I received an email saying that our flight to London was cancelled.
“We were forced to find somewhere to stay as the rescheduled flight wasn’t until the next day.
“I asked the hotel we were staying at if they had any spaces for the night. They were able to accommodate us but that was another £250 I had to pay.”
After an extra night in France, the family finally got to London at 9pm on Monday.
Dave continued: “We got all the way to the gate for our flight home to Aberdeen to then be told that this flight was cancelled too.
“They didn’t give a reason why but we were later told it was due to the bad weather.
‘Olivia was in tears’
“We asked the person at the desk what we could do. She just shrugged her shoulders.
“We didn’t know what to do, we didn’t know where to stay and the place is so big and all these flights were getting cancelled – so the queue for the taxis was enormous.
“We finally found a place to stay but it was nowhere near the airport. It cost £75 for the taxi to get to the hotel.
“Olivia was in tears, she just wanted to get to her bed.”
The family finally arrived back in Aberdeen on Tuesday morning.
But Dave said: “We don’t have our luggage.
“There’s a website that we need to put a tracking number on to see where your cases are.
“All we get is a message saying ‘we can’t locate your luggage’.”
The Kingdom FM presenter has sent a complaint to British Airways.
He added: “I chose for us to fly BA because it was such a special trip.
“We could have easily flown with a budget airline but I wanted to treat Jonelle. I probably wouldn’t have had these problems with them.”
Dave is not the only person left stranded by British Airways in recent days.
The Grand Tour presenter James May posted on X that he and fellow hosts Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond had been left “marooned” in Botswana after filming due to a British Airways cancellation.
Dave has now offered some advice for fellow travellers.
He said: “I had never thought of this, but people online are telling others to take pictures of their luggage.
British Airways ‘very sorry’ over cancelled flights
“That way, you can show customer service staff what you’re looking for and it may help in you collecting your bags.”
British Airways said the Heathrow to Aberdeen flight had been cancelled due to thunderstorms affecting the London area.
A spokesperson for the airline said: “We’re very sorry that our customer’s journey was significantly disrupted.
“Our teams have been in touch to apologise and resolve the matter.”
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