Shaken passengers left worried at 30,000 feet after a pilot reportedly ‘fainted’ and their aeroplane made an emergency landing. A Jet2 flight from Birmingham Airport to Antalya in Turkey made a stop off in Greece due to what the airline called a medical emergency.
One frustrated passenger claimed the ordeal had caused a delay of eight hours to the start of their holiday. They said their family of four was given a €15 euro voucher each which covered a "basic meal", reports Birmingham Live.
A Jet2 spokesperson insisted the flight was diverted as a "precautionary measure". The holiday firm said teams worked extremely hard to look after everyone and apologised for the delay.
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The incident happened on August 23. And the passenger told Birmingham Live how the ordeal started when the plane hit some turbulence.
They said: "While we were all [seated] we noticed something was going on at the front of the plane. We thought someone had hurt themselves in the toilet while experiencing turbulence.
"We were told we were landing in Greece due to a medical emergency on board. We weren’t told what part."
The delayed traveller said staff did "all they could" to keep people updated in the airport - but not before they were stuck on the runway in Thessaloniki for more than an hour waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Stewards reportedly informed flyers the pilot had "fainted" - but medical emergencies are not covered in Jet2's compensation policy.
"People were worried as we’d just been through turbulence and we didn’t know what was happening," the traveller added. "[Passengers] then got frustrated as once we were off the plane no one was updating us. The crew were amazing but once in the airport it was chaos."
A Jet2 spokesperson said: “Flight LS1239 from Birmingham to Antalya diverted to Thessaloniki Airport as a precautionary measure on Tuesday (August 23) due to one of the pilots feeling unwell. A replacement crew were flown to Thessaloniki so that we could get customers on their way to Antalya that same evening.
"We communicated this to our customers as soon as possible, and our teams worked extremely hard to look after everyone. We would like to apologise to anyone affected by this unforeseen delay.”
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