refused

Dan Bowes had no known allergies when he boarded his outbound flight to Turkey. But he suddenly experienced a “severe” allergic reaction – and it meant he was prevented from boarding the aircraft at the end of his holiday

A holiday-maker has claimed he was left stranded after he was refused boarding on his return flight because of an allergic reaction.

Dan Bowes had no known allergies when boarding the outbound flight to Dalaman, Turkey. But he says he suddenly experienced a “severe” allergic reaction, with his throat swelling, breathing difficulties and itchy, puffy eyes. The cabin crew were “fantastic” and acted swiftly to get the 32-year-old the care he needed. But, on the way home, he claims he was “refused” boarding by the same airline, Jet2, over a missing piece of paperwork.

“I instantly panicked,” the business owner, from Consett, County Durham, told NeedToKnow . “I made over 18 calls to Jet2’s emergency line, following different and conflicting advice each time. “I rushed to the local hospital, had the form completed and it was sent to the airline that afternoon.

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“At the airport, staff accepted the paperwork, checked me in and took photos of the form. But just five minutes before boarding, I received a call saying the form had been rejected.”

Dan claims the paperwork, a medical information form (MEDIF), was refused since the doctor had missed his name on the second page and wrote ‘N/A’ in medical history. As a result, Dan was escorted out of Dalaman Airport on 17 July 2025 and his luggage was removed. He said: “I was dumped outside the airport main entrance at midnight with no help, no hotel and no guidance.

“I was later told I could’ve flown with another airline without the form, despite being told all day it was mandatory across all carriers. By that point, though, every flight to the UK had gone.”

Dan, and his friend Clair Maskery, 33, were left having to fork out £400 for emergency accommodation, food, and transport back to Marmaris. Thankfully, the next day, they were allowed home on the last Jet2 flight that night after resending a new MEDIF form through.

But Dan said it was the conflicting information from the airline that turned his enjoyable holiday into a “nightmare”. He explained: “After we arrived, a letter was left under my hotel room door asking me to meet a Jet2 rep. She handed me a MEDIF form and said I needed to see the hotel doctor, as well as obtain a Fit to Fly certificate.

“I immediately went to the doctor, though he said I had a throat infection. I was issued the Fit to Fly, though I was told the MEDIF form wasn’t required.

“I returned to the rep, handed her my certificate and she reassured me that would be enough. So, naturally, I assumed I was cleared to travel. But when checking out of the hotel, she told me I couldn’t fly.”

Dan filed a formal complaint and later obtained their internal records. He claims there were multiple errors, including different medications administered and false information, such as him “refusing” to fill in a MEDIF.

READ MORE: Critically ill Brit nan stuck in Turkey as there’s ‘no hospital beds’ back home

He also alleges that the airline hasn’t yet provided a full list of onboard meals and ingredients – despite repeated requests -since his doctors need this information to determine his allergy, which could be life-threatening.

Dan added: “I did everything Jet2’s own rep and doctor advised. I followed every instruction I was given, double-checked twice and was told everything was fine.

“Their failure to communicate properly and process information correctly led to me being stranded abroad, financially out of pocket and mentally exhausted.

“This isn’t about me refusing paperwork, it’s about a company failing in its duty of care, giving contradictory information and abandoning paying customers in a foreign country.”

A spokesperson for Jet2 said: “Due to Mr Bowes falling ill on his outbound flight, our team followed standard procedure and advised him that he would need a Medical Information Form (MEDIF) to be completed by a doctor for his return flight home.

“As the form was not completed, Mr Bowes was regrettably informed that he would not be able to travel on his inbound flight. The health and safety of our customers will always be our number one priority. Following receipt of Mr Bowes’ completed form, we are pleased to confirm he was able to travel with us the following day.”

After launch there was the question of how to fill the days at sea.

“In my case, you eat,” says Larter. “Honestly, I’ve never had, either before or since, such a sustained spell of magnificent eating.

“The stewards loved us. They’d bring these great trolleys of wonderful food, and they knew we’d eat it.”

With copious amounts of food available and an Ashes series to prepare for, the players had to keep fit.

“We’d have an exercise session in the morning, then there were badminton courts netted off for us. We’d shove weights about, and jump up and down and things like that,” says Larter.

The England management wanted to take things a stage further.

By chance, Dexter found that British athlete Gordon Pirie was on board. Pirie won 5,000m silver at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.

“He was invited to organise us,” says Larter. “He turned up with his shorts on and decided the best exercise would be running around the boat.

“It’s quite a long way around one of those big boats, but I did what I was told.”

Not everyone in the touring party was as agreeable as Larter. Trueman, never shy of speaking his mind, had just bowled more than 1,100 overs in the English summer.

“Fred voiced an opinion which meant in no way was he running around,” says Larter. “That just wasn’t what we did to get fit. To get fit, we played cricket.

“Fred said he’d just bowled all those overs in the season, and he wasn’t going to run around a boat for anyone. The Gordon Pirie thing died off after that.”

For Larter, the trip was not just a first England tour, but a first time out of the country. On the upper deck he mixed with the wealthy travellers, lower down he encountered the Poms emigrating to a new life down under.

“We found the greatest reception came downstairs,” he says. “There were people emigrating or moving for all sorts of reasons. A lot of them were young, out to make new lives. It was interesting to meet them. There were more than a couple of decent bars and you could have a quiet pint.”

The journey was not a straight passage to Perth. Remarkably, England tuned up for a tour of Australia by hopping off in Sri Lanka to play a game in Colombo.

“We walked out on to the field and Ted Dexter said I would be opening the bowling,” says Larter.

“I marked out a run, ran in, and fell flat on my face. A real sprawler. I picked myself up, went back, came in again and did the same thing.

“I’d lost my land legs. They weren’t going where I wanted, because I’d been on the boat.

“Ted came across and said ‘what’s wrong?’. I said they don’t work! He took me off. Barry Knight had to finish the over.

“We were entertained and looked after by the British Army. They put on a big barbecue on the beach for us. How do you get to that from a small town in Suffolk? On the beach in Sri Lanka with all of these nice people. It was an eye-opener, just being there.”

The 300 metres separating Aisha Ali’s new house from the old farmhouse may seem short, but it represents the long journey of her life. The 45-year-old widow crosses fields of various crops that she tends. 

Aisha was not an active farmer; her late husband handled that. However, he was abducted in 2023 by Boko Haram terrorists while working on their farm in Malari Village, Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, and was later killed after they failed to pay a ransom. 

“My life changed tragically,” she recounted with a weary calm. 

Aisha’s husband’s death made her the breadwinner of a 10-person household, which included her six children and three of her husband’s siblings. She had no choice but to take up the hoe. 

A year later, her 10-year-old son was abducted by terrorists. He was later released when they learned that they had killed his father in the past.

It was under this constant shadow of fear, relying on subsistence farming and petty trade, that Aisha and her family found a fragile balance until the night the water came.

The midnight escape

In September 2024, a ruptured dam in nearby Alau, coupled with heavy rainfall, led to floods that submerged Maiduguri and surrounding communities, including Muna displacement camp, where Aisha lived with her family. 

They had gone to bed after an exhausting day, but around midnight, screams from the neighbours woke them up. “I woke up and saw water everywhere,” she recounted. 

Amid the terrifying mix of darkness and rising water, there was no time to save their belongings. She rallied her children, strapped the youngest to her back, and fled into the downpour. 

Together with other displaced persons, they walked for hours until they found dry land, where they stayed until dawn. When the water subsided, Aisha returned to find her entire life washed away. “We became homeless without our belongings,” she said.

A doorless shelter and hope

Staying at the displacement camp was not an option, as the government had already planned to shut it down. “Returning to Dubula, our ancestral home, was not an option either,” she said 

Aisha looked for shelter nearby and found one on credit—an uncompleted building. The structure had no doors, leaving her family vulnerable to constant theft. What few items they acquired were often stolen when they stepped out, turning their temporary shelter into a trap of insecurity. The widow, who had survived both Boko Haram and the flood, now faced the demoralising grind of daily survival in an exposed space.

Since there was no other alternative, they continued living in the building.

Aisha said it was overwhelming, but she held onto hope and did the best she could to care for her children. Weeks later, SOS Children’s Village, a global humanitarian organisation, visited the community for an assessment. “When they came around, I initially dismissed them for one of those numerous NGOs that normally come around to take our data but offer nothing much but some measures of grains,” Aisha told HumAngle. However, she registered with them as a widow and head of her household. 

SOS returned with support that Aisha describes as “an investment in dignity”. She underwent training in smart farming techniques, followed by a starter kit of essential tools: a pumping machine for irrigation, a spraying machine, insecticides, fertiliser, a wheelbarrow, and processed seeds.

“This support transformed our lives and brought relative comfort to us,” she added.

The first harvest 

With the implements, cash support, and farming inputs, Aisha got to work. She cultivated beans, pepper, tomato, okra, onion, and yams. 

She made her first harvest this farming season. “I was able to use the money from my first farm harvest to escape the unsafe shed,” she said, adding that she paid ₦30,000 for half a year’s rent on their current house. Her family now has enough food, and the surplus is sold to cover essential needs like medication.

“I am most excited that for the first time, my children are now in school—something we could not afford before,” she told HumAngle. 

Aisha explained that her income varies depending on what she takes to the market and how much she can harvest. “There is no fixed amount,” she said. “For beans, a full ‘mudu’ — that’s a standard measuring bowl — sells for between ₦1,200 and ₦1,300. Sometimes I sell up to half a bag, which is about 20 mudus. For tomatoes, a basket goes for about ₦25,000, and we usually get two or three baskets, depending on the yield.”

She hopes that the cycle of loss and disaster has finally been broken. 

“I thank the SOS people for coming to our aid because only God knows the fate that would have befallen me and my family if I had not received their support. They didn’t come to give us fish, but they came to teach us fishing,”  she said. 

Aisha said other women also received the support: “I saw them during the training, and I believe they are doing well with their families as well.”

According to Fredson Ogbeche, the Humanitarian Action Manager at SOS Children’s Village Nigeria, “One hundred families, many headed by women transforming grief into drive just like Aisha, benefitted from the intervention.”

One of the women, Aisha Bukar, is also a widow. The 55-year-old lives in the Elmiskin 2 area of Jere LGA, Borno State. Life has been a relentless succession of personal loss as she has buried seven of her 12 children over the years due to the conflict and lost her husband to a prolonged illness. This overwhelming hardship was compounded last year when destructive floodwaters swept through her home. Having lost everything in the flood, she had to start all over again. 

“What the government offered as a palliative for the flood survivors did not go around to many of us. We were almost stranded until SOS came to assist us,” she said. 

SOS Children’s Villages Nigeria is one of the humanitarian organisations that provided post-flooding recovery support for survivors. Aside from the farm implements and inputs, the organisation gave ₦395,000 to each beneficiary. 

Bukar did not go to the farm. She used the funding to meet domestic needs and also started a tailoring business where they mass-produce and sell children’s clothes.

She said that the steady income has given her daughter a second chance at education.