My family intended to travel on Swiss air to Republic of South Africa. They boarded Swiss Air at Heathrow on 26/07 and were stopped in Zurich and returned by the authorities for somehow unbelievable reason that my wife did not have a marriage certificate, my letter consenting to her travelling with our children and the children's birth certificates to prove that she was related to them. That being not enough, the authorities required my two children to get back to UK and apply for visas to South Africa since they held travelling documents. The airline personnel informed my wife that their tickets were deferred and they can travel once these requirements have been met. On 27/07 I picked my family from Heathrow and sorted all the issues they indicated. I contacted the airline to re-book the flight but they advised that planes were overbooked and that they required the travel agency (Economy Travel) to get in touch with them and will waiver our travelling to a date when space has been available on their planes. We had been on leave and our children were on school holiday and days were running out for us all. Since my wife did not require any visa, I felt she would have been allowed to travel since we had an emergency to see to someone who was ill in South Africa. I advised the airline's instruction to Economy Travel representative DINO who appeared reluctant to deal with the matter despite having pocketted about £2 500 and E ticket numbers7242780533128-30. I have contacted the Head Office in Switzerland trying to settle this issue but still I never got any feedback. We had a relative who was sick in Africa which meant we had to fork out another whooping £1200.00 for my wife to travel on a different plane. I have been calling both the airline and the travel agency and even sent complaint emails but to no avail. I still believe that my family is entitled to a re-imbursement or having another travel date given. I have saved this amount for about 5 years and I can't be seen ennriching already well-up companies. We have paid taxes which none of us benefitted from. I think something needs to be done before this goes on public view, which can have a damaging effect to to airline in these hard and difficult economic moments. This is my contact number 00447877109337
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