A man was 'stranded and shafted' and is unable to get home until next month after his WizzAir flight was aborted.
Steven Fludder is currently 2.000km from home after WizzAir aborted a flight from Bulgaria and shipped him via taxi to neighbouring Romania. The wrestling company owner is currently holed up in a oversubscribed hotel in Bucharest with five strangers and he fears they may not get back to the UK until October 8.
The 39-year-old said that his "horrendous experience" began after their 6.15am flight from Bulgaria to Liverpool John Lennon Airport was cancelled due to a bird strike. The former doorman fears his hellish journey home may only just be beginning.
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The TV producer claims the response was "shocking" and that he's been unable to eat, sleep or drink since embarking on an epic 22-hour journey back home from his holiday in Sunny Beach. He was among dozens of passengers sent on four-hour taxi ride to Romania after claims airport staff had told them they would be put up before a flight back to Liverpool.
He told the Daily Star : "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.
"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 form the pigeons, shaking their heads."
Steven couldn't have guessed just how long he and "150 other passengers" would not be back on the plane, or any plane for that matter. 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.
Steven claimed the airline reps said that stranded passengers would be put up in a hotel, but he objected to the lengthy stay. Then, he claims, they were taken to a hotel four hours away, in Romania. Steven said that when he and his band of five other travellers got there, 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. Steven said that after a while the hotel manager took sympathy and bundled them 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.
He said: "It's like we're homeless for the night now. 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 12 hours."
Steven bought the group beers and Pringles to improve morale, but he said people are in limbo and the elderly gentleman was sick from hunger because the airline offered no refreshments despite the long ordeal. Speaking from Bucharest at just before midnight local time on Tuesday, nearly 22 hours since leaving his hotel to start his journey back to England, Steven said "everyone is confused and panicking".
He added: "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.
"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."
Steven, who said he goes on six holidays a year, said he had never experienced such a "dismissive attitude from airline staff to leave people stranded." He said staff gave people only a thirty minute warning that they'd be sent to Bucharest at around 4pm local time, 2pm in the UK.
He said: "It's a strange place if you've never been, not like Sunny Beach which is like Blackpool." Steven said he doesn't know what tomorrow holds as WizzAir won't answer their calls. Love Holidays, the site Steven and others booked through, said the stranded bunch have to speak to the airline, he claims.
Stephen said: "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 cant do anything', yet we booked a package holiday with them. We begged them."
A spokesperson for Loveholidays said: “We are sorry to hear of Mr Fludder’s experience after WizzAir cancelled his flight at short notice. We are in regular contact with Mr Fludder and are on hand to speak further to his airline, as required, to ensure his situation is resolved as quickly as possible.”
WizzAir has been contacted for comment.
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