A family felt 'humiliated' after easyJet staff refused to let them board a flight home after a dispute over their hand luggage.
Ahmed Huwait was due to fly from Geneva to Birmingham with his wife and two sons, however he claims staff stopped them at the gate.
He insists that easyJet workers failed to provide him with a 'clear reason' for not letting them on the flight - and he now believes it could have been due to racism.
EasyJet has denied that its employees discriminated against the Huwaits - and said they were barred from the flight for being 'disruptive', Birmingham Live reports.
The family, who moved from Australia to Solihull last year, were at Geneva airport on New Year's Day after spending the festive break travelling around Germany and Switzerland.
Ahmed, aged 40, an IT manager with accountancy consultancy Deloitte, said the problems began when they got to the gate to board their £122 one-way flight.
"The staff member, who happened to be super nice with everyone before us, started being very picky with us, although we had two kids, one of them was, clearly, feverish," he said.
"When we showed our frustration of the unnecessarily long and tedious process, she took the matter personally and denied us boarding - even though we had all the right documents, luggage and we have been there in time."
He said there was initially a dispute over their cabin luggage, but that was resolved.
"We had four bags as hand luggage and staff told us it was too much and we had to either consolidate it or pay a fee," he said.
"So we took all the stuff out of the four bags and divided it into three bags.
"The staff then said the bags were too big for the cabin, but we put them into the measuring boxes and they fitted and we were told we wouldn't have to pay the extra fee and the bags were fine."
However, even after that, the family still weren't allowed to board.
"We told staff one of our sons was unwell and we had to catch that flight as it was the last of the day and both my wife and I were due in work the following day," he said.
"But they refused to let us board and managed to make us miss the flight whilst standing on the gate, humiliated us in every possible way while failing to give any proper reason for the boarding denial."
Ahmed and his wife, Dr Zahraa Abdallah, 36, a computer science lecturer at Birmingham City University, then spent three hours discussing and calling easyJet's customer service at their airport and over the phone.
They tried to fly with another airline that night, but couldn't and ended up staying overnight in a hotel and paying 220 Euros to fly home the following day.
The couple, who have two sons - Salman Huwait, aged 14, and Malik, nine - were born in born in Egypt and have spent the last 11 years living in Melbourne before relocating to Solihull last year.
Ahmed said: "We found this to be a horrible and distressing experience for all of us, including the kids, who saw their parents standing helpless at the gate, yelled at and insulted by easyJet staff.
"We were denied our right to boarding and threatened by the staff to call the police for us without any wrongdoing on our parts."
Ahmed said he and his wife felt one possible explanation for the staff's behaviour could be racism.
"As people of colour, with Middle Eastern names and with my wife wearing a head-scarf, seeing ourselves singled out with this horrible treatment, it was so hard not to think we have been victims of discrimination by easyJet airport crew who happened to be all white people," he said.
He said the manager who were called out to resolve the issue never asked them what happened.
"We started arguing with both of them, demanding a clear reason for denying our boarding without any luck," he added.
"They never managed to spell it out, instead we got a lot of rudeness, ignoring us whilst speaking, calling me 'crazy' because I insisted on knowing why I am being denied boarding, before handing out our boarding passes, shushing us, and threatening to call the police!
"My little one broke down in tears, seeing his parents in this situation and realising he is not going home as we promised him."
A spokesman for easyJet denied the family's claims of racism and said they were not allowed to board because of their "disruptive" behaviour over their hand luggage.
“The family were not permitted to travel because they became disruptive towards our gate staff when they were asked to pay the fee for their over-sized hand luggage," he said.
"We do not discriminate against anyone and take allegations of this nature seriously and have found absolutely no evidence of discrimination by our gate staff.
"The customers were moved onto a flight the following day.”
The family said they were now pursuing a claim of compensation against easyJet.