WizzAir passengers from the UK have been stranded in Romania since Tuesday after their flight from Bulgaria was aborted.
Steven Fludder, 39, from Preston, is one of ten Brits currently stranded in Eastern Europe, and he said many passengers fear they may not get back to the UK for 11 days.
After his 6:15am flight from Bulgaria was abruptly cancelled, he said the airline sent him on a four hour taxi ride to neighbouring Romania where he is now staying on the floor of an overbooked hotel in Romania’s capital of Bucharest.
He said he has been unable to eat, sleep or drink since he embarked on his 22-hour journey back home from his holiday in Sunny Beach, Bulgaria.
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"It's mental, honestly. As we were taking off, just leaving the ground, our plane hit a flock of pigeons and the engine burst into flames so they hit the brakes full on. It's quite scary stuff," he told the Daily Star.
"They just hit the brakes like 'boom' all of a sudden, imagine like super whiplash. It was crazy, people were numb and confused.
"We could tell they were going to kick us off the plane because they were all stood around looking at the blood on the engine from the pigeons, shaking their heads."
Fludder claims airport staff had told them they would be put up before a flight back to Liverpool. However, he said he had no idea just how long he and "150 other passengers" would have to wait for their flight.
He claims that WizzAir told him and the other passengers that the next flight that could take them to Liverpool was on October 8, almost two weeks away because the next one, on Saturday, October 1, was fully booked.
Fludder spoke to news reporters from his accommodation in Bucharest just before midnight local time on Tuesday. He said "everyone is confused and panicking".
He said he and a group of five other travellers were sent from the Bulgarian airport to the city of Bucharest in a four hour taxi journey across country borders. They arrived at a hotel where they were “fobbed off” and told there were no rooms left.
He claims a worker at the hotel said that WizzAir had been sending passengers there all day even though they were full.
Fludder said that the hotel manager bundled the six strangers into a "not fit for purpose" room together, with just two beds.
The group put two elderly men, one with one leg and another in his seventies, into the beds - while the rest of them "slum it" on the floor.
"It's like we're homeless for the night now," he said. "We are just happy to have anywhere. I am on a wooden floor with a towel for a pillow. I've literally known these people for 12 hours."
Fludder said the elderly gentleman in his room was sick from hunger because the airline offered no refreshments despite the long ordeal.
"Everyone went at least 12 hours without food or drink, we were never offered it at all in the end. One of the older men was shaking and being sick from hunger," he said.
"Then they tried to bully people to fly to London, but wouldn't cover people's travel from London to Liverpool. You've got people, young couples, who can't afford that journey and don't know what to do."
Fludder said he had never experienced such a "dismissive attitude from airline staff to leave people stranded."
According to Fludder, WizzAir won't answer their calls. He also claimed that Love Holidays, the site he and others booked the holiday through, told them they must speak to the airline.
"They hung up on a crying woman in the end who spoke after me. We told them we have no money and no food and are stranded. 'We can't do anything', yet we booked a package holiday with them. We begged them," he said.
WizzAir and Love holidays have been contacted for comment.
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