[rosenewell]

Unfortunately, I have two serious complaints about my flight - booking ER1GN7K, easyJet Flight 2103 - that have put me off easyjet for the foreseeable future unless an appropriate response is received
1: Ground staff in Berlin:
One man in particular (the man in charge) was completely unprofessional. First, spontaneously I am told my suitcase must be checked in, even though mine is within limits. I explained that taking out all our valuables will be difficult, as we are getting married, meaning my dress, jewellery and shoes will need to be taken out, as well as computers, cameras, etc. No leniency was given and no other passengers were asked if they wouldn't mind checking in their stuff instead, which would seem a logical approach. I was then told to do this repacking on the (busy) floor. I did not want to put my wedding dress on the floor, so I (very) calmly said I'd very briefly use the free chair on the end of the speedy boarding area to repack everything, then return to the normal boarding area. The man started being very unusually aggressive and wanted me to not do this, but his less superior colleague and other passengers seemed able to calm him down at this point.

Then, to our utter shock and surprise, my now-husband was told his flexible, small and thin rucksack would also need to be checked in. This rucksack easily fits underneath the seat as it is small enough to even be allowed on Ryanair, so it should really have been guaranteed to be allowed on the plane.

We were understandably upset, as this meant we now had all our wedding clothing in our arms (thankfully some things in packing cubes, but still), in addition to all the gadgets. His colleague tried to find a solution (blond young man - obviously quite new but clearly has good customer service skills), asking if it would still be possible to fit in my now-husband's rucksack, but the man in charge stood firm. I pleaded with him, and was understandably very shocked, but I never once insulted anyone, threatened anyone, or became angry (the other passengers and the blond colleague can confirm this). While I tried to explain how worried I was that our things for the wedding might go missing, without *any warning* the man attempted to escalate the situation by telling me I must return my boarding card and would not be allowed to fly that day. Bear in mind that he knew we were getting married, and he never once told me to calm down (because I wasn't even that in need of calming down, I guess), nor did he try to find a compromise. He simply went straight to telling me
I could not fly to the UK for my own wedding and demanded my documents back without any warning. Obviously, this lack of warning would make most people go so mad they would then be banned from flying, making it a self-fulfilling prophesy. I pleaded with him and explained that I was simply upset because I did not want to lose my wedding dress. He did not listen to me and kept telling me I could not fly - other customers looked horrified in the background, and baffled by his behaviour. My husband then managed to calm the man down - amazingly - and we were in fact allowed to fly. In the end, my husband also managed to calmly explain how difficult it was to carry all our valuables onto the plane without the obvious bag for them: his rucksack. Then it was actually agreed we could have the bag on the flight - but we should have been allowed this from the start.

I am so utterly upset by the behaviour of the man in charge here that I will not be flying with easyjet from Berlin again unless I can be assured he has been made aware of the problems he has with anger/stress management and customer communication. I feel to some extent that his demand that I should return my boarding card was a deliberate attempt to escalate the situation - obviously had I reacted any less calmly then he would have appeared in the right had he called security and demanded I could not fly, despite the fact what he did would make anyone angry.

To top this off, there is a part 2:
On arrival at Luton, we waited for more than 90 minutes for my suitcase to arrive. When it did finally arrive, it was soaking wet. Thankfully, the suitcase has an inner lining, so the things inside - including our shoes for the wedding - were not wet. Other passengers were less than fortunate. We were obviously panicking that things might have gone missing, just as we originally feared. I was also incredibly thankful that we had, in the end, persuaded the aggressive man in Berlin to allow us to take my now-husband's small and non-waterproof rucksack onto the flight. Had we not been able to, many important things for our wedding would have been completely soaked. And of course, a 90-minute delay for luggage is beyond unacceptable...

---

So far I have received a few sympathetic tweets telling me to contact them, which I've done. But then I submitted a complaint which was clearly boilerplate just apologising for the delay! No mention of the far more serious complaint about this member of staff.