20 hour delay for Thomsonfly Coventry Airport flight
26.04.06
Angry holidaymakers today told of a nightmare ordeal which left them stranded in Coventry for 20 hours when they should have been enjoying themselves in sunny Portugal.
Ninety passengers expecting to fly out from Coventry Airport yesterday were five hours late taking off after a series of technical problems.
But an hour into their journey, the plane had to return to Baginton because of yet another hitch.
Passengers were told they wouldn't be able to fly out again until this afternoon. And the final straw came when they were offered a hotel room - but only if they shared with a complete stranger.
The travellers on the low budget airline Thomsonfly's flight TOM 6963 should have flown to Faro in Portugal at 4.40pm yesterday.
One fed up traveller Tim Poynton, aged 58, of Butt Lane, Allesley, was looking forward to a golf trip with his brother David, aged 61, of Harrogate, Yorkshire.
They paid £108 each for return tickets and are now demanding an apology.
Tim said: "We are only out in Portugal until Saturday so this is eating into our trip a lot.
"It's not compensation of hundreds of pounds that I want - it's the fact that someone should have been there last night to apologise.
"I certainly won't fly with them again."
The flight's catalogue of trouble began when:
* The flight was delayed until 5.10pm because of "a technical problem";
* At 6.15pm passengers were told the fault could not be fixed and another plane was coming from Bournemouth to take them and they would fly out at 9pm;
* When this arrived it too had a problem. This was fixed and at 10.20pm the plane took off;
* An hour into the flight there was yet another technical problem and the plane turned around to go back to Coventry.
The passengers arrived at 12.30am and were told if they did not live locally and could not get home they would be put up in a hotel.
But they were told there were only 20 rooms for the remaining 40 passengers - meaning strangers had to share rooms.
David, a former Woodlands School pupil, stayed at the Britannia Hotel with friends Keith Clark, Dave Upton, John Rathbone and Freddie Barratt, who were also going on the golfing holiday.
David said: "We had a couple of friends who flew out from Birmingham and were looking forward to having a relaxing meal with them last night and playing golf this morning.
"Now they are having to try to re-arrange our hotel, the car hire so this really has screwed up the first 25 per cent of our holiday."
A Thomsonfly spokeswoman said: "This is a very rare situation and all of our aircraft undergo rigorous technical checks regularly, but the safety of our passengers and crew is the top priority.
"The decision was to overnight the passengers in an hotel and we will ensure they get to their final destination as soon as is possible.
"Thomsonfly does recognise this is a frustrating time for all concerned and we are doing everything we can to make sure customers are as comfortable as possible."
To book coventry airport hotel or airport parking coventry at the lowest price, click on these links to two great coventry airport parking and coventry airport hotel price comparison websites.
