Family removed from flight as toddler’s insect bites mistaken for chicken pox

A mum has expressed her anger after her family was removed from a flight when their daughter was suspected of having chicken pox.

Gillian Ainsome was queuing at a check-in desk in the airport in Malaga, Spain with her partner and two-year-old daughter Amelia when a member of staff took issue with marks on the little girl's skin. The marks were from insect bites the child had gotten on the holiday but the staff member from Jet2 Holidays was concerned that they were chicken pox. "He just insisted that the bites on her arms were a virus like chicken pox," she told The Sun. "I told him they were just harmless mosquito bites from her holiday, but he wouldn’t listen." Gillian said that the family were told Amelia would have to be seen by the airport doctor before they could fly home to Manchester. They duly joined a queue to be seen by a doctor but had to wait so long that they ended up missing their flight. The family had to pay to stay in the country an extra night and to visit an outside doctor for a second opinion. Travelling home a day late, the only available flight home was to Edinburgh, taking the family hundreds of miles out off their way. "It was awful. It was our first time abroad as a family and we’d had a lovely time. It was ruined by sour-faced airline staff. "It was ridiculous. If Amelia had been wearing a cardigan, he would never even have seen the bites. "It was like he was looking for an excuse to get people off the flight." The airline said that the family has been compensated.