Everybody knows that there are limitless ways for the dampers to be put on one's long-awaited summer holiday. The nest of short, curly hairs revealed between the sheets of your hotel bed; the human stool bobbing gaily in the communal swimming pool; the realisation that your resort is populated by smug expats with Frank Butcher accents who say gleefully that Britain is going “daaan the paaaan”; being befriended by Keith and Wendy who seemed harmless at first but after two glasses of wine remark that they “tactically” voted BNP and after a bottle are ranting about how their high street resembles “Kabul central”.

But nothing urinates on your parade quite like arriving at the airport to see the word CANCELADO winking from the departure board alongside your easyJet flight number. And then remembering that, as you are flying “budget airline”, you probably stand about as much chance of a happy outcome as a lap dancer performing for the Taleban.

This is what happened to me this week (the easyJet bit, not the lap dancing) when travelling back to Liverpool from a holiday in Spain. For added grimness it was Sunday, when internet airline admin staff go into a deep coma and you may as well try getting home by strapping bedsheets to your arms and sprinting very fast down the runway.

At this point, can I say that generally I have little sympathy for people who whinge about cheap airlines. The democratic spirit of such air travel pleases me - ie, rich folk at the front aren't getting served Bollinger behind a blue curtain while I nurse a warm Fanta by the rear lavatories. EasyJet is usually on time, the staff are nice and if you pay 10p for a flight then what do you expect, you spoilt Western brats - steaming hand towels and an at-seat massage?

But we didn't pay 10p, we paid £140 each and, while I accept the no-frills ethos, I don't accept that actually sitting on a plane counts as a “frill”. And it's the second time easyJet has done this to me in two years (I fly with them only twice a year, so that's not a terrific hit rate), this time with no notice or explanation.

So, here's what happens when your flight is cancelled in a foreign airport on a Sunday. You see the departures board, whimper quietly to yourself, then look around for the reassuring sight of orange-cravated airline officials ready to marshal their flock. But, save for the occasional wisp of tumbleweed, there is nothing and no one, so you try to phone - before remembering that internet airlines avoid verbal communication like most people avoid flashers and you may as well talk to the vending machine.

Then you notice a queue - a very, very long queue, at the front of which is what looks like a small ice-cream cart with an easyJet logo tended by one person, aged about 12. This is your “help point”. So you join the queue and wait. And wait. And an hour later, when you have shuffled forward 6in, the only information you have gleaned, passed down the line in Chinese whispers, is that an extremely lucky few of us may just possibly get a flight later tonight to Bristol, or Newcastle, or Luton 200 miles away, then be herded into a muckspreader (they said “coach” but is there a difference?) to complete our journey. But most would have to find a hotel and return tomorrow for a similar not-to-be-missed offer.

Bristol, you say? With wheeled transport that may or may not materialise at the other end and which, given the state of M5 traffic, could take anything up to a year to get you home? Mmm, tempting, but if it's all the same to you I'd rather set fire to my head.

This is the thing about “budget” airlines. Like cheap insurance policies, they are great until something goes wrong. Then they are exposed in all their nakedness like the man in the Carry On films whose toilet cubicle falls down around him and reveals him, trousers round ankles, sitting on the khazi.

Eventually, after more waiting and more British-style anger (ie, sighing really quite loudly), we made a decision. The four-year-old had been car-sick in the taxi to the airport, we had lumps of boiled egg in our hair and smelt like dog food. So we stomped off and, via our exhausted credit cards, paid £720 for three tickets on a different scheduled flight to Manchester, which we caught by the skin of our teeth, arriving at the gate like stampeding pigs - and coppering up the £60 required for a taxi home at the other end. Other easyJet passengers, seeing that queue going nowhere, followed suit. But others, simply too skint, were stuck - which I know makes us lucky.

Now begins the fun of trying to recover the money from easyJet via the treat of phoning the “Customer Experience Centre” at 10p a minute. Surprisingly, they were quite helpful and said that we might be entitled to a full refund. Mmm, we'll see.

Whatever happens, though, they can't “refund” the treasured feeling of relaxation which is the whole point of going on holiday. I arrived home feeling more knackered than before I went away. Hardly surprising, then, that the internet is full of passenger forums raging about budget airlines arbitrarily cancelling planes with a nonchalant shrug.

Recent headlines have heralded the “End of the £1 flight!” thanks to the credit crunch and rising oil prices. I can't remember the last time anyone I knew got a flight for less than £50 but, if it stops us taking as many of them, maybe it will do us a favour.

What with the toxic mounds of crumbs that you increasingly find down the seats, the stained seatbelts and now the fear that your plane won't turn up, it's starting to feel less like “no-frills” and more like “contempt”.

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