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Holiday nightmare for family stranded on plane
A Swansea family's journey to Alpine ski resort Val d'Isere took in three flights, a coach journey through Italy and more than 20 hours on a plane at Cardiff Airport
What should have been a simple trip from South Wales to France turned into a nightmare for Fiona Griffiths and her family — at one point the plane arrived at Lyon Airport only for passengers to be told they could not be unloaded.
Mrs Griffiths, from Mumbles, set off with her husband and two children, aged nine and seven, at 3am on Saturday for their planned six-day skiing trip to Val d'Isere.
However, the family were left dumbstruck when told that the 6.45am flight could not be unloaded after they arrived in France.
"We could not land at our destination airport of Chambery so we went to Lyon Airport and they would not let us off," she explained.
Mrs Griffiths, a solicitor with Graham Evans and Partners, said she was shocked that Lyon Airport would not let the travellers get off.
It was very frustrating and I don't understand why they could not unload us " she told the Post.
The passengers on the Boeing 737, almost 200 altogether, were then flown back to Cardiff and put up in a local hotel for Saturday night.
However, they were had to leave their accommodation by 4am to get back on the plane later that morning. "I had about four hours sleep," said Mrs Griffiths.
She said that, as well as a shortage of sleep, essentials like food and drink were also starting to run low.
"We were given a breakfast and I picked up some water bottles in the airport, but there is a limit to what you can buy," she said.
Mrs Griffiths said the ordeal had already proved too much for 23 travellers who decided to abandon their holiday plans.
"They got off the plane as they had had enough," she said.
The departure of some of the group, however, only added to the woes of those waiting as it meant luggage had to be taken off and reloaded.
Mrs Griffiths said plans were changing frequently but the most recent proposal was for the travellers to fly to Milan then take an arduous six-hour coach journey to their resort.
She explained that she would be happy to return home if it wasn't for the thought of leaving her children disappointed.
"They have been brilliant and they just want to go on holiday," she said.
Mrs Griffiths said, although she had experienced travel woes before, nothing had come close to this weekend.
A spokeswoman for Crystal Ski confirmed that the flight had taken off by 1.20pm on Sunday and was expected to land by 3.30pm.
She explained that the problems experienced by the Griffiths family had been caused by the severe weather.
"The conditions were absolutely terrible," she said.
The spokeswoman, however confirmed that there will be compensation offered to the travellers for the delay to their holidays.
"We have already been in touch with the customers," she said.[/textarea]
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/south ... ticle.html
This was a TOM aircraft used by Crystal which is also part of the TUI Group.
Very annoying and perhaps distressing for some passengers but there is only so much that can be done to deal with weather problems of course.
As always communication with customers is the important thing when things don't go as planned. Airlines, airports and tour companies are not always good at this but I don't know if such was the case this time. The woman concerned doesn't seem to have been told why they were not offloaded at Lyon or, if she was, she either didn't listen or didn't agree with the explanation given.
Numerous flights were affected at Chambery at the weekend because of snow - somewhat ironic given the purpose of these ski flights - and this one seems to have been a spectacular example.