Why you should never expect flying to go smoothly

The Man Who Pays His Way: Why a planeload of passengers took three days to get from Innsbruck to Birmingham

(Katsuhiko)

Of the many frustrations of travel, the “creeping delay” is particularly cruel.

You know the problem: at first, your journey from A to B looks as though it might be a little late. Then a lot behind schedule. Later still, another location – let’s call it C – becomes entangled in the journey.

Last weekend, around 80 holidaymakers with Inghams encountered a classic creeping delay, with all the stress and upset involved when time flies but you don't.

They were due to fly with CityJet from Innsbruck to Birmingham. They left their hotel at 8.40am on Saturday 17 June, for an 11am flight. They boarded, the plane taxied out to the runway, then taxied back to the terminal, because of a technical issue.

After an hour stuck on board, by which stage they should have been about to commence the descent to Birmingham, they were told they would not be flying to Britain that day. An engineer was flown in to fix the plane.

An extra night in Innsbruck, at the airline’s expense, is not entirely disagreeable, especially when everyone was entitled to €250 under passengers’ rights rules.

The party went back to Innsbruck airport at 6am, but the fault remained and the flight stayed grounded.

CityJet said it would send a fresh plane to take them home. But not to Innsbruck, a tricky airport with special rules on pilot training. Instead the passengers spent Sunday afternoon on a three-hour bus ride to Munich airport, from where they were promised a flight at 9pm that evening.

Once again, the promise was broken. More hotel rooms were found for Sunday night, with a 5am call for transport to the airport. The planned 8am departure came and went, and it was mid-afternoon before they finally departed for Birmingham.

Several of the exasperated passengers contacted me during and after their ordeal. Gary Westwood tweeted: “Disgraceful service from @cityjet on WX5393 from Innsbruck to B'ham into 3rd day of travel back with an 89yr old man.”

It might look to you like a catalogue of errors and communication failures by the airline and holiday company. But during the week I have contacted both CityJet and Inghams. And their side of the story deserves a hearing.

After the Saturday snarl-up, Inghams, together with CityJet’s aviation broker, ACS, worked through the night on Saturday to source an alternative aircraft. On Sunday morning, it became clear that no alternative aircraft would be available to land at Innsbruck. So everyone was moved to Munich, with a CityJet plane drafted in from Dublin.

Seats on other airlines had been booked, but were released in anticipation of the flight going ahead. But that plane also “went technical”. By the time engineers had fixed the problem, there was no time to reach Munich before the 10.30pm flight curfew.

Instead, a plane would be flown in for an 8am departure on Monday morning. The weary passengers were told to be ready to leave their hotel for the airport at 5am.

But at 3am, it turned out that no crew was available. Eventually another plane was found at Brussels and flew in to Munich.

Viv Spencer, who kept me informed through the delay, said: “We eventually took off at 3.45pm, I must say to the biggest cheer I have ever heard.

"We landed at Birmingham at 4.25pm, but apparently the airport were not expecting us and we had to stay on the plane for another 35 minutes before any ground crew with steps arrived to allow us to disembark.

“By this time, everyone was resigned to the fact that another half hour was nothing compared to what we had been through over the three days.”

The bill so far for the kerfuffle runs into tens of thousands of pounds. That’s before passengers start claiming for financial damage, such as lost earnings, under the Montreal Convention. Such awards are in addition to the €250 stipulated by European passengers’ rights rules.

To limit the financial and reputational damage in future, Inghams and CityJet have agreed to try to ensure there is no repeat of the problem by booking passengers on scheduled flights as soon as a significant delay arises.

“A new set of guidelines has been agreed," says the company. "If, in future, our airline partner is unable to facilitate their swift return on a rescue flight, scheduled airlines will be used so as not to inconvenience our guests further.” In other words, cut the creep.