On 30 January 2003 I was stranded at Stansted airport when my easyJet flight to Munich failed to take off because of a raging blizzard. What happened next was farcical - the easyJet representatives disappeared from the departure lounge and shut the desks, it took from 8 at night to nearly 4 in the morning to get my baggage back.

• 5 February 2003 I wrote a letter of complaint to easyJet's CEO Ray Webster. I also applied online for a refund.
• 25 March, having heard nothing, I wrote a second letter...
• 4 April, because of my online application, I received email notification of a refund.
• Out of the blue, in June, a letter of apology from easyJet customer support. Much non-specific humble-pie-eating, no evidence of any real attempt to get to the bottom of what happened, and certainly no spontaneous gestures of goodwill in the form of compensation. And hey, it only took 4 months, 2 letters and 1 website to squeeze it out of easyJet. A real no-frills apology from a no-frills airline.

Mr Webster... tell your customers what happens if their flight is cancelled, and train your staff in how to deal with customers when things go wrong!

3. Email notification of refund, response to online application, not to my letter

Judge for yourselves whether you think this email answers the questions in my letter to Ray Webster, CEO of easyJet.

Dear Michael

FLIGHT GO 315 / Stansted TO Munich – 30/01/2003

Thank you for filling in our online refund form. We realise that your travel plans were disrupted by the cancellation of the above flight and for this we would like to offer our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

As a form of compensation, we have now authorised a refund of the fare for the aforementioned flight sector. The amount of £172.53 will be credited to the payment card, which was used to book the flights, within the next 14 working days.

Once more, many thanks for taking the time to contact us.  Although you have had an unpleasant experience travelling with us this time, we hope that you will give us another opportunity to prove that we usually do get things right.

Yours sincerely

Elaine Evelyn

Customer Support

Back to my original complaint letter.