A Welsh pensioner who thought she was on a plane headed to Slovenia for the wedding of her grandson was shocked to discover she had instead been taken 680 miles away when trying to get through passport control.
Wheelchair user Joe Winter, aged 89, and her daughter Hayley Vickery, 58, from Swansea, checked into Luton Airport on April 9, excited to get to Ljabljana - the capital of the central European country - for the wedding of Mrs Winter's grandson, Aaron, in Lake Bled.
They were being flown by Wizz Air, and the pair said they had a chat with a member of staff about Slovenia before showing an air steward their boarding passes. But it was only once they had touched down and made their way to passport control that a guard told them that they were actually in Poznań, Poland. We previously reported how a Swansea mum touched down from holiday to find her autistic son who had been taken ill wasn't put on plane. You can read about that by clicking here.
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Ms Vickery said: "We showed our passports at the gate and they asked if we had been to Poland before. I said 'yes why?' It was because we were in Poznań."
The other half of their party, who were on the right plane, learned mid-flight that Joe and Hayley weren't sitting in the designated disability access zone, the Mirror reports. It led to a frantic 24 hours and hundreds of pounds spent by Ms Vickery to try and figure out how to get to Slovenia in time for her son's wedding only two days later.
Ms Vickery added: "It was all stress. We were away for a week in total and Wizz Air still haven't been in touch. My mother was terrible. She didn't have her medication and was without it from the Saturday to the Tuesday. Everybody was besides themselves."
With their options limited, they decided to stay the night in Poznań before jumping in a £270 taxi to Warsaw, where they boarded a flight to Ljubljana which had cost them close to £700. There they were reunited with their luggage including wedding outfits, which had been taken off the Wizz Air flight in Luton.
Ms Vickery said: "We have had no contact with Wizz Air at all. In a really volatile Europe we were boarded onto a plane to Poland and no one knew where we were. We were close to the border with Ukraine. I would like Wizz Air to apologise and explain what happened, and a full refund."
Wizz Air has been contacted for comment.
