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Passengers on an easyJet flight from London Gatwick to the Greek island of Santorini endured two diversions on the same day, and eventually arrived 20 hours late at their destination.
EasyJet flight 8241 departed about half-an-hour late from London Gatwick, destination Santorini, on Saturday 14 September.
The Airbus A320 flew southeast normally to the Aegean, and made two attempts to land before flying south to Heraklion in Crete, landing at 8.25pm, local time.
After a two-hour wait on the ground, the Airbus A320 took off again and made several more attempts at landing before diverting again, this time to Athens – arriving shortly before 1am, local time.
The pilots and cabin crew needed rest, and as a result the plane did not depart from Athens for the half-hour short hop to Santorini until 4pm on Sunday, with passengers arriving over 20 hours late – with some of them spending the night at the airport, rather than in hotels as stipulated by European air passengers’ rights rules.
Two other flights from London, which had departed on Sunday morning, arrived in Santorini before they did.
The diversions meant that the passengers booked to fly back from Santorini to Gatwick on Saturday evening were delayed overnight.
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “Flight EZY8241 from London Gatwick to Santorini on 14th September was required to divert to Heraklion and then Athens and was delayed overnight due to strong winds in Santorini.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority and whilst these circumstances were out outside of our control, we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused and did all we could to support customers.
“We arranged hotel accommodation and meals where available and advised that any customers required to make their own arrangements would be reimbursed.
“However, due to limited hotel availability, some customers stayed in the airport and while we worked with the airport to make them as comfortable as possible in the circumstances and provided refreshment vouchers, we are sorry for the difficulty this will have caused.”
Passengers do not qualify for compensation as the high winds were beyond easyJet’s control.
A Tui flight from Larnaca in Cyprus to Gatwick diverted in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The Boeing 737 Max appeared to be on course for a 2.30am arrival at Gatwick, descending to about 5,700 feet. But instead of turning west to land at the Sussex airport, flight 4323 climbed to 12,000 feet and flew north to East Midlands airport, 126 miles away, where it landed at 3am.
The Independent has asked Tui the reason for the diversion.
