230 people stuck in Iceland. Poles waited for the flight for 27 hours
Wizz Air passengers were unable to leave Iceland due to a plane malfunction. In total, over 230 people were stranded on the island.
Instead of Katowice, Wizz Air passengers spent the night in Keflavik, Iceland. An unusual situation occurred on Thursday, June 11. According to Fly4free.pl, the planned boarding was unexpectedly interrupted shortly after 5 p.m., and then the flight was canceled for technical reasons. This was only the beginning of the horror for the passengers, who flew from Iceland less than 30 hours later. Even though the airline provided them with accommodation, some travelers did not hide their disappointment with the whole situation.
A plane malfunction grounded Poles in Iceland
The Wizz Air flight, which was scheduled to take off from Reykjavik to Katowice on Thursday afternoon, finally left Iceland more than a day later. How did it happen that passengers (mainly Poles) got stuck in one of the most expensive countries in the world? It was all due to a fault in the plane that occurred while landing in Iceland, when the plane collided with a bunch of birds. “As a result of this incident, the composite aerodynamic cover located on the nose of the machine was damaged,” writes Fly4free.pl. “The new cover was sent to Keflavik Airport from Budapest as quickly as possible, but customs procedures related to its transport took longer,” Gabriele Salvatore Imperiale, communications director at Wizz Air, told the portal.
The tourists waited 27 hours
However, Wizz Air passengers had no idea what the fault was and how long it would take to repair it. They first learned about the complications on Thursday during boarding, when the ground staff notified them that the flight had been canceled due to technical reasons. The process of settling travelers in local hotels began and lasted until late hours. They were taken from the airport by small buses that did not have enough seats for everyone. In one of the hotels, it turned out that there were no available rooms, so the guests had to be transported to another facility.
The return flight was supposed to take place at 12 p.m. the next day, but ultimately the Wizz Air plane did not leave Keflavik until Friday at 12 p.m. 21.23 local time. During this time, passengers complained, among others: for problems with redeeming meal vouchers at the indicated time or organizing a free return transfer to the airport. However, the airline assures in its statement that it has minimized the scale of the disruption and all passengers have been cared for.
