Passengers who were stranded in Doncaster on Monday after their Wizz Airflight was rerouted from Luton say they have only been offered €35 credit as compensation.
Several customers contacted The Independent this week following the nightmare flight - which involved being delayed for three hours on the tarmac at Tel Aviv on Sunday night, being told after boarding they’d be flying to Luton, not Gatwick, and then being told 30 minutes before landing that they would in fact be touching down more than 200 miles away in Doncaster, Sheffield.
Following a clamouring 4am queue for taxis at Doncaster Airport - many of which refused to go so far south - Luke Baker, his partner and children spent £480 on a four-hour taxi home, while Adar Cohen and his family of four spent £260 on a three-and-a-half hour taxi.
Multiple passengers told The Independent that Wizz Air staff had promised there would be coaches on the ground, but then disappeared once at the airport, with Doncaster Airport staff left to inform them there would be no coach service and to help them find alternative transport.
Now, Mr Cohen and Mr Baker say the airline has only offered €35 in Wizz Air credit per passenger, rather than any cash compensation or even a robust apology.
Several passengers told The Independent they would not fly with the airline following the experience - with two of them saying they’d had an equally stressful time and more than 20-hour delays on their flights out to Israel - rendering the airline credit meaningless.
Wizz Air has told passengers they may send the airline their alternative transport receipts - but no one has yet been compensated for this aspect of the disruption, and Mr Cohen’s claim has been marked as “resolved” on the Wizz Air website.
In its emails to customers, the airline says no compensation is due under EU Regulations 261/2004, since the event of being unable to land at either Gatwick or Luton fell under “extraordinary circumstances”.
Of the failure to get customers to where they were going - the lack of coach service back to Gatwick - it says: “We contacted several transportation companies in the area to ensure your transfer from Doncaster to Gatwick, however, due to the Easter bank holiday in the UK, none of the companies contacted were able to provide this service.
“We always strive to take care of you, our customers, in the best possible way and that is why we are sorry to have not been able to provide you with transportation to your original airport destination in this extraordinary situation.”
Customers say the lack of communication and service on the tarmac before the flight, in the air when the destination was changed and particularly on the ground in Doncaster was unacceptable and should be apologised for.
“Even if it’s true that they couldn’t land in Gatwick or Luton, which I could not find evidence for online, were there other flights that couldn’t land?” asks Mr Cohen.
“There are three other London airports, there’s an airport in Essex and there’s a duty of care that does not include the airline staff disappearing.”
Meanwhile, Mr Baker received a different explanation from Wizz Air’s customer service department.
“We apologize for any inconvenience caused by providing all passengers an alternative carriage. This situation was a result of bad weather conditions not allowing safe operation... in order to comply with the contract and transfer passengers to their original destination in the best and fastest way we provided bus transfer for a part of the journey, as an attempt to avoid greater inconvenience by flight cancellation.
“However as the transportation contract was fulfilled and you were carried to your final destination we cannot grant the requested refund.”
Mr Baker was mystified - “Neither of which was true and not what the captain said” - and replied saying there must have been a mix up as his family had not been provided a bus service.
Eventually he received the same email offering €35 credit as Mr Cohen, but believes Wizz Air owes the passengers more for the distress and inconvenience.
“There’s reimbursement and there’s compensation. For the taxi fare, which I think is an absolute given, and they clearly know they owe some compensation for the disruption.
“There really was no assistance - no provision of food or water and no Wizz Air representatives,” he said of landing at Doncaster shortly after 3am.
“I don’t think I’ll ever fly them again, and [offering credit] is a bit brass neck for an airline that failed to deliver on its promise to get people to their destination.
“Airlines get diverted all the time, as long as you’re upfront about it generally that’s okay. But in this case, they took no responsibility at all and abandoned people, effectively. They really didn’t seem to care. That’s just abysmal,” he adds.
Simon Calder, travel correspondent of The Independent, said: “It seems that Wizz Air can legitimately claim ‘extraordinary circumstances’ and avoid paying out the compensation stipulated by air passengers’ rights rules.
“But given the serious dislocation triggered by the closure of Gatwick’s air-traffic control service, the carrier could have been more generous than just offering a €35 (£30) voucher.
“After a recent domestic flight in the US where we were waiting at the gate at Orlando for an airbridge hook-up for 45 minutes, Frontier Airlines sent us all a $75 (£57) voucher almost instantly.”
Wizz Air says it has contacted all customers involved and is accepting reimbursement claims for transport.
A spokesperson for the airline said: “Wizz Air sincerely apologises for the inconvenience and disruption that was caused by the rerouting of its flight W9 5752 from Tel Aviv to London Gatwick on Easter Monday (18th April).
“Due to Air Traffic Control staff shortages at London Gatwick, it was unfortunately not possible for the flight to land at the airport as planned, and instead it had to divert to Doncaster Sheffield. Owing to lack of available bus and train transfers at short notice, we were unable to source transportation as quickly as we would have liked.
“We seek to deliver great customer experiences, and recognise that we fell short on this occasion. All affected customers have been informed to submit a claim for transportation costs incurred, and offered Wizz Air credit, as part of our apology for the inconvenience caused.”
