A fuming mum has told of how her daughter's dream trip to meet Santa in Lapland turned into a nightmare after families were left stranded in Edinburgh. A day filled with festive fun was soon ruined when passengers on a flight to Humberside Airport, Lincolnshire, were diverted over 300 miles to the Scottish capital.
After leaving at 7am on Sunday, December 11, passengers expected to land back at Humberside at 9.40pm, but faced a last minute diversion due to heavy fog. "Hundreds" were then forced to wait on a bus that never turned up.
The worried mum said her daughter, eight, was poorly but decided to go on dream trip with another family member, as they expected it to only last the day, Grimsby Live reports.
She said: "They were meant to be there all day and they arrived back at Humberside Airport at 10pm — it was just a fun family day out to Lapland."
After tracking the flight with her partner, the pair became concerned when they could see it "flying around the airport" and not landing. They contacted Humberside and were informed the pilot had a 15-minute window to decide whether to land or not.
She said: "It got to one hour later and there was no 15-minute window gap, they were still circling. He'd gone up to Scarborough and back down. I rang back again and said, 'What's going on? It's 11pm now, what's going to happen? She's eight and hasn't been very well'."
Shortly afterwards, the mum was informed the plane would land in Edinburgh as a closer airport was not available, with flights from London Gatwick and London Stansted already diverted to all other major airports - meaning they were "fully booked".
"I was in absolute shock," the mum said. "You've got all these other airports you could go to but apparently all of them were fully booked because Gatwick and Stansted had diverted flights there because of the weather, so all the other mainstream airports were fully booked."
The concerned mum contacted Humberside Airport after the diversion and was informed passengers would be driven back to Humberside by several buses, with an estimated arrival time of 7am. But passengers quickly informed her there were no buses in sight and none showed up due to bad weather. Travellers were then told that they would need to be driven back to Humberside Airport in taxis.
She said: "There were babies, kids my daughter's age and teenagers who had been to see Santa. They thought they were going to get back home for 10.30pm and then they're stuck in Edinburgh. One of the kids even had a nosebleed and there must have been hundreds of them just laid about on the floor.
"My daughter and our family member stayed in a hotel for the night and they're not back yet because all trains are cancelled. They were stuck at the train station and the majority of them are cancelling at the last minute. But, hopefully, they get back today.
"I'm fuming. She was so poorly and I told her to go on the trip, that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. She was so ill but the family member had spent a lot of money on the trip. I don't get how they can just leave all those children stranded."
A spokesperson for Enter Air said: "The aircraft was diverted due to very bad weather conditions at Humberside Airport. There were no available buses, so all available taxis were used to transfer passengers."
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