When EasyJet flights are anything but easy - Tenerife flight problems
An EasyJet flight that wasn't easy
EasyJet is an airline that runs services to and from Tenerife but a flight out of the island on 12 June 2013 was anything but “easy” when various problems caused a very serious delay.that stopped the flight leaving on time, and this happened more than once.
The ill-fated flight in question (EZY8704, TFS to LGW) was bound for the UK but incredibly it faced no less than four different and unrelated delays.
Aboard an EasyJet
News of a French air-strike
First of all, the air-strike by France caused the plane to experience delay arriving, and this meant that boarding was late by 90 minutes
At long last, the passengers had all taken their seats and clearance for the flight to leave had been given. However, just when all was finally going to plan and the plane was approaching the runway another unforeseen mini-disaster struck. One of the passengers became clearly unwell and so it was decided that the jet should return to the airport terminal it had just left.
Approximately another hour later, after the sick passenger had left the plane and her luggage had been unloaded, the captain of the EasyJet flight was given clearance for departure once more.
After all this the plane took off once more but just after the seat-belt lights had gone out, a passenger who had clearly had too much to drink began creating problems to such a degree that the captain determined that under the circumstances the correct course of action was to go back yet again.
Tenerife South airport
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Las Palmas airport in Gran Canaria
However, the plane was denied the necessary clearance to land, and got diverted to Las Palmas airport in Gran Canaria. Having arrived at this wrong destination in a neighbouring island the police were summoned to deal with the drunk.
By the time everything had been sorted out, the passengers had already spent four hours on the plane and instead of getting to the UK had only succeeded in getting to another of the Canary Islands. If all of this wasn’t bad enough, the captain and crew were then informed that they were not allowed to continue on to their destination in Britain that day, because if they did so it would be in violation of the legal maximum hours permitted. It should have taken four hours to get to the UK but had taken that long to just get across the sea to Gran Canaria!
Easyjet Airbus and Flights
Hotel in Gran Canaria
The passengers were transferred to a local hotel in Gran Canaria, and were told that they would spend the night there before another flight could be scheduled for the following day..
The time for take-off had been 12:30 on the original day of departure; however, after all these unfortunate delays the EasyJet website gave the ETA of the flight as 4:15pm the next day!
The passengers that suffered this awful set of circumstances will be unlikely to want to choose a flight with this airline again but it should be noted that none of these problems were the fault of EasyJet or the crew of the plane. It was just a really bad run of luck for all who boarded the flight in question. It was a flight that was certainly not easy but I understand that it finally arrived!
© 2013 Steve Andrews