27 hour delay for Flyjet Newcastle Airport flight
22.06.07
Passengers travelling with holiday airline Flyjet from Newcastle Airport to Cyprus were delayed for almost 27 hours yesterday. Flyjet said technical problems meant the flight, which was due to leave on Wednesday morning, failed to take off until yesterday. A spokeswoman for the airport said the delay had caused knock-on problems for other passengers.
Flight FJE 606 from Newcastle to Paphos should have departed at 08:05 on Tuesday, but suffered a four-hour technical delay because of a faulty bleed valve in an engine. When the aircraft was eventually pushed back and the engines started, the problem reoccurred and it had to be brought back onto stand.
Flyjet then tried to find five coaches to take the 222 passengers booked on the flight from Newcastle to Manchester for an alternative flight. However, no coaches were available in time to make the required check-in for the departure time. The passengers were therefore sent to an airport hotel for the night so the Flyjet aircraft could be fixed. The flight eventually took off at 10:51 on yesterday.
An airline spokesman said: 'Flyjet apologise to passengers for the delay and the subsequent disruption to holiday plans.'
An airport spokeswoman added: 'The same aircraft that flies to Paphos also flies to Arrecife in the Canary Islands. So there are passengers checking in for that flight who may well be delayed too.'
Flyjet is a charter airline based at Luton Airport. It is a subsidiary of Silverjet, the UK all business transatlantic airline that launched flights in January this year.
This is not the first problem for Flyjet at Newcastle Airport. In May 2007 the airline was involved in another problem when passengers on board a flight to Sharm el-Sheikh were forced to sit on board the aircraft for 8 hours whilst on the ground at the airport. As passengers became more and more angry at the situation the Police were called due to the cabin crew fearing for their safety.
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