Joy of Travel

I’ve flown United Airlines since it merged with the formerly excellent Continental Airlines, so I know something about depressed and uncaring airline employees, horrible flights and crap operations.  But on my flight back to Austin yesterday (which United managed to not screw up too badly this time), I read a story in La Provence about a group of French tourists in the Canary Islands who win this week’s award for worst flight. 

163 passengers including eight children and a small baby, spent the last day of their August vacation inside a Boeing 734 sitting on a runway baking in the Spanish sun.   They waited throughout the afternoon and evening, presumably without a meal or anything much to drink in keeping with new industry practices, until they were ultimately told at 11 p.m. that they’d need to disembark because Arrecite's Lazarote Airport was closing for the night.

Lazarote Airport, a notoriously hellish place

The official, no-frills explanation provided by the tour operator was: “The plane arrived late and couldn’t leave.”  O Voyages (henceforth, Oy Voyages) added:  “Lazarote is an airport that closes at 11 p.m. and since the crew arrived late, the Canariens closed.  They don’t accept tardiness.”  The Canariens may be the last in the air travel industry with some standards. 

Meanwhile, the customers of Oy Voyage had a very different story. 

“When the pilot came on to announce we were going to take off everyone agreed immediately that he was totally drunk,” 37-year-old passenger Delfim Paiva told the paper.  “Then we saw some bizarre movement by the hostesses who didn't want to go on the flight.  Passengers panicked and people started trying to break down the door to get off the plane,” he said, adding that eventually the Spanish Guardia Civil intervened to evacuate the plane. 

"They later told us the pilot was just tired," Mr. Paiva added. 

The tour operator Oy Voyage had sold the trip through the French website Voyageprive.com, a sort of Groupon-clone for French discount travel.  Mr. Paiva said Voyageprive "confirmed that the hostesses refused to take the flight because the pilot was inebriated."

“Au contraire,” countered Alain Nizard, representing Polish airline Enter Air (marketing slogan: "Colorful holidays") which provided the charter aircraft to Oy Voyage. Monsieur Nizard, a graduate of United Airlines’ school of customer service, blamed the passengers. 

They “were drinking on board to such a point that the pilot and crew had to be protected in exiting the plane. They were delirious, throwing bottles at the hostesses,” he said by way of explaining how the Spanish cops got involved.  

Passengers in Madrid Airport last year

Mr. Paiva said about 60 exhausted passengers were put up in a hotel overnight. The other 103 unfortunates – along with some of their kids – slept on the airport floor.  This being 2012 and all, there are apparently plenty of photos and videos of this tour from hell.  

The plane finally took off the following evening but instead of going straight to Paris as it was supposed to do, it stopped first in nearby Fuerteventura for fuel.  

“People on the plane were crying,” another passenger reported.

Anyone who flies these days knows exactly how they felt.