Two friends were left stranded at a holiday airport without food or water after their flight home was delayed. Nyomi Loftus and Megan Sainsbury were due to fly home to Manchester from Palma de Mallorca Airport on Saturday with Jet2 at 11.25pm but the flight was held up after allegedly missing a take-off slot.
However, they were forced to search for their own overnight accommodation with a replacement flight not scheduled until 24 hours later. The pair claimed they even had to pay for their own taxi to get to a hotel for the night, reports the ManchesterEveningNews.
Nyomi, from Sale, Cheshire, claimed there was jus 70 bottles of water to share between 380 passengers before arrangements for hotels were made. She said: "The worst part was that they called out the names of 30/40 passengers and told them to go to a special spot so we could go to an adult-only hotel.”
The 36-year-old added: “We had to pay for the hotel; families with babies were lying on the floor. The hotel ended up being a family hotel anyway – they could have gone. We were told there was a mix-up with the baggage and they had miscounted.
"They had to unload it off one plane before moving it and then they lost the slot to fly as the staff needed a rest. No one could get any detail from anyone.”
Nyomi and Megan were forced to fork out a taxi fare to their hotel 40 minutes away from the airport, costing them €65. A replacement flight was not scheduled until 11.35pm on Sunday (June 19).
“There was a little girl sat near us in the airport who was being sick because she was crying so much,” Nyomi added. "People were just walking around trying to find out what was going on. It was left it absolute uproar – it was a bit of a disaster.
"The first food and drink was provided at the hotel at 7.30am - eight hours after our flight was due to depart and 11 hours after we arrived at the airport."
In a statement, a spokesperson for Jet2 responded: “We would like to apologise once again to customers affected by this delay. Our teams have worked tirelessly to look after everyone, however unfortunately there was a shortage of accommodation in Majorca yesterday (Saturday) evening.
"We advised customers immediately via text that we would reimburse anyone that needed to book hotels separately and we have done everything we can to look after everyone. All remaining customers are being flown home this evening.”
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
