Family in 2000 mile flight bungle
22.07.08
A family who were flying out from Cardiff Airport for a week's holiday in Lanzarote are back home after a check-in desk mix-up meant they caught a flight to Turkey instead. Charles Coray, his wife Tania and their nine-year-old daughter Phoebe did not realise the mistake until they landed and a hostess said ‘welcome to Turkey’.
The Corays, from Llanishen, Cardiff, had booked an all-inclusive holiday with First Choice in a five-star hotel in the Canary Islands and were supposed to be flying into Arrecife, Lanzarote. But instead they found themselves in Bodrum airport, Turkey where they then had to pay a £10 visa charge per person before boarding a plane back to Cardiff. They were issued the wrong boarding passes by a ground handling worker at Cardiff Airport on Sunday morning. The family have accepted First Choice's offer of a holiday to Ibiza instead.
Mr Coray said they had not realised their mistake because their boarding pass stated only Bodrum airport and not that it was in Turkey. He also said there were no announcements in the departure lounge about the flight and that as soon as they boarded the plane they fell asleep.
He said: ‘It was about 06:30 when we arrived at Cardiff Airport and we were directed to the Servisair desk. We did not realise that more than one flight was being checked in. We were half asleep and didn't realise that the girl on the desk had put us on the wrong plane. When we were called to the gate we gave them our boarding passes, got on the plane and fell asleep. It wasn't until the hostess said ‘welcome to Turkey’ that the penny dropped.’
The family then caught the same aircraft back to Cardiff, arriving at around 16:45 on Sunday and were put up by their holiday company in a nearby airport hotel. Mr Coray said: ‘First Choice tried to negotiate with us and wanted to send us to Luton in a taxi so we could get to Lanzarote yesterday. But we paid extra to fly from Cardiff. If we had flown from Luton it would have meant we would have had to have come back into Luton and we don't want to do this.‘
Mrs Coray said: ‘It was unbelievable. I know they send luggage to the wrong places but not people. We're now booked on a like-for-like holiday in Ibiza which leaves at six tonight [Monday]. I'll make sure I check the boarding passes so we don't make that mistake again!’
A spokesman for handling agents Servisair apologised for the upset caused and said the passenger service agent who accepted them onto the wrong flight had been suspended from duty pending a hearing. A spokeswoman for First Choice also apologised for the mistake and said the Coray family would be refunded in full for any additional expenses incurred.
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