Edinburgh flights: Couple devastated after flight disaster makes them miss best friend’s wedding

The couple has blasted the ‘utter incompetence and inconsideration’ of British Airways.

A couple have been left devastated after they missed their friend walking down the aisle due to a flight and luggage ‘disaster’.

Hussein Cadosch and his wife Laura were ‘ecstatic’ to be part of his best friend Sophie’s big day in Edinburgh and had planned to arrive in the city the night before the wedding on Saturday, September 16.

After their departure from Basel was delayed they found themselves stranded at Heathrow on Friday night. The frustrated couple were told that British Airways couldn’t find accommodation so they had to scramble to get a hotel room. It took more than half an hour of calls before they managed to find an available hotel and forked out £239 for a room that night.

Hussein and Laura Cadosch missed their friend's wedding

But after struggling to get onto an early connecting flight departing the next morning, it was then delayed too. To make matters worse, after finally landing at Edinburgh Airport with about an hour to make it to the wedding they had to wait for luggage which didn’t turn up.

Mr Cadosch, a PHD student at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Our flight out of Basel was delayed by almost an hour. With 30 minutes to get to the departure gate at Heathrow, BA staff told us we would need to miss the flight.

“It was so frustrating. I am still so angry about the lack of sympathy from British Airways staff. After we were told we’d have to miss the Edinburgh-bound flight their first response was ‘there’s nothing we can do’. We had to really push to get them to find us a standby on Saturday morning. That was our only hope for making the wedding, all overnight trains were booked.”

The couple, who missed the wedding ceremony and only made it to the reception at the last minute are furious and have blasted the ‘utter incompetence and inconsideration’ of British Airways.

Laura, who recently moved back to Switzerland for a new job, never got the suitcase which had her wedding outfit in it and the case is still missing.

Mr Cadosch, 35, said: "After an hour waiting at the carousel in Edinburgh Airport we knew that my wife's luggage wouldn't be coming. Her wedding dress, jewellery, and makeup were in there. It was devastating because we had just wasted an hour that we didn't have. And there was nobody at the desk to help us. The case is still missing somewhere. The whole thing has been a disaster. Everything that could go wrong did.

"We weren’t the only passengers left frustrated. There was a woman who came from Ukraine and had been travelling for 30 hours. As she was talking to us, she collapsed. We got her some water. There was no seat so she just sat there on the floor. The BA staff didn't even look up from their computers. It was so shocking to everyone.

“I’m extremely sad we missed the sight of our best friend walking down the aisle. She was my first friend when I first moved to Scotland. I didn’t know anybody then. Though we did manage to get a bit of time at the reception, the utter incompetence and inconsideration of BA left us feeling so stressed out. It ruined what should have been a happy memory. It was the sheer helplessness of the situation. They made us feel like we just didn’t matter. They didn’t honour our contract, they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that.”

Mr Cadosch has submitted a claim for travel and accommodation and plans to submit a formal complaint.

A spokesperson for British Airways said: “We know how frustrating it is when our customers are delayed and we've apologised for this disruption, which was caused by adverse weather conditions. Our teams are working to reunite the customers with their bag as quickly as possible.”