Confused JetGreen customers expecting to fly yesterday to Alicante in Spain arrived at Dublin airport to find the word "cancelled" printed in capital letters next to their destination on departure screens.
Flight FI494 was scheduled to leave Dublin at 2.35 p.m. yesterday but instead, customers found themselves forced to switch to more expensive flights on other carriers.
"I'm in shock," said Ms Joana Bayón, whose mother, Ms Maria Angeles Iglesias, had been visiting her on holiday.
Ms Bayón said she and her mother didn't know that JetGreen had suspended its flights until they went to the airline's check-in counter.
There an airport employee told them they'd have to book a new flight and gave them a copy of JetGreen's press release apologising for any inconvenience suffered by its passengers.
To get back to Spain, Ms Iglesias decided to buy a round-trip ticket for €195 from Aer Lingus.
JetGreen was billed as a low-cost, high-service tour operator promising, in a high-profile marketing campaign, "all the frills of yesteryear, delivered at the value people expect today".
But for many of the hundred-plus passengers stranded yesterday in Alicante and Malaga, the experience has been a costly nightmare.
Passengers Ms Olwen Maher and Ms Eileen Derby arrived at Dublin airport last Sunday morning to check in for a 6.25 a.m. flight to Malaga only to find it had departed over an hour earlier.
Together with other stranded passengers they only then discovered that the company's small print allowed two-hour flexibility on departure times.
That cost them €270 each for one-way tickets with Ryanair to continue their four-day holiday.
Now they are stranded in Malaga and looking at paying nearly €200 a head to get back home with another airline.
Back in Dublin, Mr Scott Nowell and his girlfriend Ms Jackie O'Sullivan, on holiday from Spain for a week, were also unaware of JetGreen's demise until they arrived at the airport.
Mr Nowell said he and Ms O'Sullivan paid €19 each for their flights from Alicante to Dublin and €89 each for the return flights.
To return home, they grudgingly paid €208 each for a round-trip between Alicante and Dublin at the Aer Lingus ticket counter, after they had hurried to the airport's internet cafe in search of cheaper fares and found none.
Like Ms Iglesias, they decided it was a better value to purchase a round-trip than a one-way flight.
Mr Nowell, a teacher, described his flight on JetGreen to Dublin as less than luxurious. "There was no paint on the outside of the plane, it was all white," he said.
"Everything was cheap."
Ms O'Sullivan, who is Irish but now lives in Spain, expressed concern for friends who were scheduled to fly out of Dublin to visit her but would now have to find new flights.
Mr Nowell advised those tempted by compelling discounts from new carriers: "Don't bother with cheap flights. It's not worth it."
