Man stranded abroad spends £2k on mammoth 63-hour journey in desperate bid to get home
01.09.2023 - 07:27
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A man spent more than two days travelling on coach, train, and bus after his flight was cancelled due to a UK air traffic control failure.
Jack Reeve, 25, was due to fly from Croatia to London Luton with easyJet, however was told three hours before he was set to board that his flight had been cancelled. The journalist, from Norwich, said he was unable to book any flights with easyJet and faced disruptions with train services because of a landslide that blocked tracks across Europe.
Mr Reeve said his next available flight would have been on Sunday but feared it would be cancelled for a second time - so he decided to travel by land instead. "We made the decision on Tuesday morning to go back via coach and train as that was the only way we could do it and that we deemed feasible," he said.
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“The other problem was there’s been really bad storms across Europe, which has created landslides on a lot of the train tracks. Lots of the trains were on coach replacement throughout Germany and Austria – everything was against us.”
With his girlfriend in tow, Mr Reeve travelled by coach replacement from Split to Zagreb, across to Villach, Austria, before hopping on a train from Stuttgart to Paris. He then took the Eurostar to London on Thursday morning before going to Luton to pick up his car and driving all the way back to Norwich.
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The couple spent roughly 63 hours travelling home after leaving Croatia at midnight on Tuesday and arriving in Norwich on Thursday afternoon. Mr Reeve said the journey was "nerve-wracking". He added: "I’ve never travelled across