LBC presenter drives hire car from Côte d’Azur to Old Kent Road after his flight was cancelled

Exclusive: LBC breakfast presenter Nick Ferrari returning Hertz rental car to London’s Old Kent Road instead of Nice airport

Home run: Nick Ferrari made it back to London in time for his regular radio show (LBC)

The LBC breakfast presenter, Nick Ferrari, is set to be hit with a massive “one-way drop-off” fee after he drove his French rental car from the Riviera to London.

On Sunday morning the radio star was on the last morning of his holiday at a villa in St-Paul-de-Vence, in the hills of Provence, when he learnt from a news programme about widespread flight cancellations after a French air traffic control systems failure.

“My partner, Clare, was in a swimsuit about to have a final swim,” he told The Independent. “I said, ‘Before you do that, hell’s a-popping – let’s check the flight’.”

He discovered that his easyJet flight to Gatwick was one of 100 services to and from the Sussex airport to be grounded.

More than 15,000 British travellers are still stranded abroad. But Mr Ferrari was due on-air at the LBC studio in London’s Leicester Square at 7am on Monday morning.

So instead of returning their Renault Grand Scenic to Nice Côte d’Azur airport as planned, they set off north with Mr Ferrari driving while his partner sought other flight options on her laptop.

“She tried Marseille, Bordeaux, even British Airways from Geneva, but with no luck. So we just carried on.”

They covered the 762 miles to Calais with “six minutes to spare” before the 11.15pm DFDS ferry sailed to Dover, and reached London shortly before 2am – 12 hours after they were due to touch down at Gatwick.

In total they had driven 840 miles. The direct Nice-Gatwick distance is only 622 miles.

Mr Ferrari spent a small fortune on fuel and motorway tolls in France. He now has some explaining to do with Hertz about why he is dropping off a French-registered, left-hand-drive car in London’s Old Kent Road rather than Nice airport.

When The Independent attempted to make an online booking with Hertz for a one-way trip from Nice to London, the response was: “Sorry, there are no vehicles available for the period and/or location you have selected.”

While one-way rentals within the same country are commonplace, international drop-off fees can be astronomical – or unavailable.

The Independent has advised Mr Ferrari to take the car to the Hertz depot in Calais, to reduce the scale of the fee.

A one-way rental from Nice to Calais with a Renault Grand Scenic is currently priced at £309.