Flybe abandons a planeload of passengers in Italy

Exclusive: ‘We stood in a queue waiting to find out what was going to happen to us for the next five hours,’ said passenger Lorraine Flack. ‘There were no Flybe reps to be seen.’

Now boarding? File picture of a Flybe Q400 aircraft (Simon Calder)

Flybe has apologised after abandoning dozens of passengers in Italy when it abruptly cancelled a flight.

Some of the 67 travellers are still stranded abroad.

Saturday’s 1.55pm departure from Verona to Southampton was first delayed by over two hours, then cancelled altogether.

Under European air passengers’ rights rules, an airline that cancels a flight at short notice must arrange and pay for hotels, meals, local transport and an alternative departure as swiftly as possible.

But a number of passengers who were due to travel on flight BE1224 have told The Independent that Flybe simply abandoned them.

Lorraine Flack, who was travelling with her daughter, said: “After the cancellation, we stood in a queue waiting to find out what was going to happen to us for the next five hours. There were no Flybe reps to be seen.”

Some of the passengers were on package holidays organised by TUI, which had two representatives.

Mike Batty and his wife were TUI travellers. “We were eventually advised that the flight would not be taking place and that we were ‘free’ to make our own arrangements to get home,” he said.

“Fortunately for a number of us a TUI rep sorted out onward travel arrangements. At no time were we given any information by Flybe.”

The TUI staff organised alternative flights for their own customers, then helped independent passengers, including Lorraine Flack.

“We were told that the next plane from Verona wouldn’t be until Wednesday so we would have to fly from another airport,” said Ms Flack.

“The TUI rep managed to get us a flight from Milan to Gatwick on Sunday evening, though we had to pay for it upfront. They also said they would try and find us somewhere to stay for the night.”

Ms Flack and her daughter finally arrived at a hotel outside Milan at 11pm, nine hours after the flight was due to depart.

Staff there said she would have to arrange and pay for transfers to the airport, as well as paying for lunch.

Mary McGuire was less fortunate. She was one of a group of 15 who were still at Verona Airport as closing time approached.

“I went to the airport taxi rank and organised taxis. But we had to pay our own; they wouldn’t take the vouchers provided by Verona ground staff,” she said. She arrived at the hotel at 1am.

Ms McGuire was booked on a Sunday evening flight from Milan to Amsterdam, with another overnight stay before a flight to Southampton. She is due to arrive just under 48 hours after the original touchdown time.

Flybe was able to fly eight of the 75 original passengers home on a later flight. For the others, the airline insists: “Every attempt was made to provide alternative convenient travel options and overnight accommodation.

“However, compounded by major events being held in Verona, it was not possible to quickly re-accommodate all passengers on alternative flights or easily find available hotel accommodation within the immediate vicinity and so we regret this was not achieved as speedily as could normally be expected.

“Flybe would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience to the passengers on the above flight that was cancelled due to a technical fault with the aircraft.

“When it became clear that it would not be possible to initiate engineering support within a reasonable timescale, we had no other available option but to take the decision to cancel the flight. The safety of our passengers and crew is our number one priority at all times.

“We are extremely concerned to hear that, given the situation, our third-party handling agents reportedly did not provide an acceptable level of service quality to our passengers and we are investigating this as a matter of urgency and working with them to understand what happened.

“Flybe will continue to honour our obligations under EU261 regulations.”

Each of the passengers is entitled to €250 (£222) in compensation, as well as reasonable out-of-pocket expenses.