About 15 years ago, Mr. Rosie and I were on a Delta flight that got delayed for several hours. When the flight finally took off, it ended up making an emergency landing in Little Rock, Arkansas due to mechanical issues. That was frustrating, but the real kicker was when Delta’s agents told us that we were on our own to figure out how to either get to LAX or return home to North Carolina. We ended up having to buy same-day tickets for a totally different airline. It was a very expensive nightmare and I didn’t fly Delta again for almost a decade after that.
A few weeks ago, a group of travelers from Zurich, Switzerland had an airplane ride from hell that beats my story by far. What was supposed to be a nice, relaxing three hour flight from Zurich to Crete turned into an unexpected (and I’d argue unnecessary) 32-hour adventure. And what an adventure it was! They made four stops and still didn’t make it to the island.
Airline travel can be a headache, but it’s not every day that a less than three-hour flight turns into a 32-hour saga that ended in passengers being returned to their original airport.
On May 24, Condor flight DE1234 departed from Zurich, Switzerland, heading for Heraklion, Crete, in Greece with 137 passengers and six crew members. The flight, which is supposed to take just under three hours, experienced “extreme weather conditions,” a Condor airlines representative told PEOPLE.
“With strong winds, take-offs and landings at Heraklion Airport on Crete were only possible to a limited extent,” Condor said in a statement. “Despite several attempts to land in Heraklion, the flight was unfortunately unable to operate as planned and had to be diverted several times including a night stop in Thessaloniki before finally returning to Zurich.”
According to Business Insider, citing data from Flightradar24, the flight circled off the coast of Crete half a dozen times before U-turning to land in Athens.
The outlet reported that the plane made four stops and endured an overnight stay in Thessaloniki during the 32-travel time. The plane also stopped in Athens a second time and in Kos before returning to Zurich.
Condor said that the flight made “several stops,” including a night stop in Thessaloniki.
The airline also said in its statement that, “Refreshments and drinks were served for all guests by the crew in the galley,” however, according to Metro, some passengers complained that they weren’t given many refreshments and some reportedly vomited during one of the attempted approaches to Heraklion.
When asked about the claims, the Condor spokesperson told PEOPLE, “Drinks were served for all guests by the crew in the galley, the hotel accommodation was organized by Condor,” noting that guests can contact customer service for “refund and rebooking options.”
Passengers also claimed they had to pay for their own hotels, per the outlet, and upon landing in Athens for the second time, were given the opportunity to disembark ahead of the final return to Zurich, but without their checked luggage.
Other accounts say that passengers were only offered one cup of water during the 32-hour journey and were not given any food. If true, then that is absolutely unacceptable. Either way, what a saga! It’s sort of baffling why Condor didn’t just tell the pilot to return to Zurich after the second attempt failed. Bad weather sucks, but it happens. You can’t control it. It seemed pretty clear that landing in Crete wasn’t in the cards that day. Those poor passengers! I hope they all were able to finally get to Crete and start their vacations! This is a small consolation, but at least they now have a wild adventure story that they can tell at cocktail parties or use as an ice breaker.
Photos credit: Connor Danylenko, Jason Toevs on Pexels, Erik Odiin on Unsplash, Getty and via Instagram
I was once on a 3 hour flight that took 8 hours from take-off to landing. During this godforsaken flight, a very drunk woman started screaming : ‘there’s a bomb on the plane!’. Now that had nothing to do with the length of the flight (there was no bomb) . However crew plied her with even more alcohol which was clearly a GREAT idea. We weren’t ever told why our 3 hour flight took 8 hours and had to land at a random middle nowhere airport for an actual refuel. The entire double deck plane was in a panic, only because they said nothing. I had a convo with the flight attendants trying to get them organised. Airlines often suck. They had cute young useless staff. That’s why I love old flight attendants. They take zero shit and will restrain people. I had to say, can you shut people up and stop the f panic?
When I was in high school I went with a school group to Australia. On our way back, the fog was so bad in Sydney that they halted everything going in and out. By the time it lifted, our pilots had timed out (and so did most others) so we had to wait for them to get their rest period. Of course that meant we missed our connecting flight in LA. It turned out to be a 48 hour trip home, but the airline was fantastic and made sure our whole group got rebooked together and provided lots of vouchers while we were in the airport. No flight has been bad ever since.
Oh, gad! I once had a 30-minute flight that turned into a 3hr flight–eight-seater, so no food or drink. We had on board people from some other flight & we had to take them to another island entirely before we could come back to ours. Another time on one of those 30-minute flights we had first boarded our plane, then after a time were told to get off & get onto another plane, then when we finally got under way we got all the way to our destination, circled the airport & started descending then pulled up & flew all the way back. When we all started complaining, hey, we were right there! why’d you leave! the co-pilot turned around & yelled at us. He lost his cool when a plane full of Hawaiians yelled at him! On those small planes, pilots don’t get a little room all their own; they’re exposed to their passengers & they’re gonna get an earful when things go wrong!
On yet another 30-minute flight (different state), we got all the way to our destination but the winds were wrong, circled several times, then back to our starting point where we landed but weren’t allowed off the plane. Then they said, well, you can get off the plane but you can’t go in the airport. Then it was, well, you can get off the plane & go in the airport, but you can’t get back on & we’re not unloading the luggage. I can’t even remember how long that saga took. I got home somehow.
Now these folks, on the 37hr trek, I’m happy to hear they were actually allowed off the plane for the evening but I bet they spent an ungodly amount of time in that little metal cigar tube. It will be interesting to learn what side of the story is true–food or no food, drinks or no drinks, paid hotel or no paid hotel, etc.
My first question in situations like this is always who is in charge here? Who made decision after decision after decison to land somewhere else, and then my second question would be how did that compare to every *other* flight to Crete in those 32 hours. How were all the other flights handled? ALso… they were “given the opportunity to disembark ahead of the final return to Zurich, but without their checked luggage”– how was stranding passengers in a random other place without their luggage supposed to help?? [maybe if a passenger just wanted to escape Condor’s clutches with their life by the point, I guess…]
🎯
Yes, wondering if they were given the opportunity to disembark in any of the other stops. Especially Athens, where chances of getting another flight to Crete were probably the highest.
Having flown a lot to/from some pretty out of the way places on small planes for small runways, I looked it up. Heraklion is one of the worst airports to fly into due to its prevailing winds & terrain. It sounds like what the pilots at Wenatchee explained to us, with the nearby cliff face that causes wind sheer. Sounds less like a scheduling problem than a physical problem. Probably best to take the ferry from Athens (which of course takes longer, but you’ll be sure to arrive).
This is awful, but it’s a rough day to read it after the horrendous loss of life in India.
Yes, the plane lands, it’s a good day. I spent 24 hours looking at the India situation. It’s horrifying, heartbreaking.
Yes, yes, and yes.
This is the Fyre Festival of flights
Note to self: Never fly Condor!!
Not enough Xanax in the world.
I think I would have to be committed (or arrested for a freak out) if I was in a plane cabin that long.
Yeah, couldn’t take it. So far my longest, most interminable flight was, I dunno, 17 hours? LA to Amman, Jordan stopping in Chicago & Vienna–but no getting off the plane. So miserable. Same flight attendants the whole way, too, and my goodness they were grumpy by the end of the flight!
As someone who suffers from numerous food allergies, I was reading this and thinking it would be my worst nightmare. Airlines and security staff are already very iffy about passengers travelling with their own food – and I have to! – but the limited quantities allowed would not have sufficed for a 32-hour journey AND it is my experience that the staff would NOT have been able to provide anything at all for me to eat on that flight! I love flying, but stories like these make me anxious. It’s one of the reasons I prefer to travel around Europe by car – I can take everything I need with me!
Whenever I fly, I take tons of nuts plus some energy bars with me. Mostly because I snack every few hours whereas my husband prefers to wait hours and hours for a huge sit down meal, so I nibble all day, every day of vacation. But I never trust airlines to feed me if there’s a delay, so…
There are very few things I hate more than planes. I had to fly a lot in my 20’s because of my job. My knees were trembling every flight. I am so happy now I don’t have to take a flight. I would probably die from stress if this happened to me 😭😭
I am squeamish about airplane bathrooms as it is, but I cannot imagine how gross those bathrooms were after 32 hours. Those poor passengers and staff.
Part of that 32 hours is the overnight stay in Thessaloniki, which is a beautiful city with some of the best food in Greece. I hope the travelers were able to enjoy even a tiny part of that. The winds around the Greek islands can get very fierce, but I don’t understand why this flight kept persisting. Ok, you try again once, but was somebody telling them the weather would get better?
At least one of those 137 passengers would have insulin dependent diabetes and could not survive on a limited food supply for this length of time.
I don’t know anything about flight procedures and the city locations to Crete but couldn’t the airline let everyone off in one the cities and let them re-book for Switzerland or Crete? It seems like a lot of unnecessary drama.
It looks like that option was offered, but the airline wouldn’t offload the checked baggage. It would be difficult to unload the whole plane to find only specific suitcases.
At least Little Rock is a friendly place!
Once Little Enis and I got stuck grounded on the tarmac in San Antonio for six hours due severe weather in Dallas. It was apparently the closest clear airport. It was summer, no AC. We had been on the plane all night. It was not a fun time
We’re lucky in that living in the UK we have the option to travel by train and we’re now in Paris on the return leg of a trip that has taken us to Montreux and Zermatt in Switzerland all by train and it’s been delightful. This story is reminding me of one of the many reasons I prefer to travel by train where at all possible.
My favorite story in this genre is definitely my maternal grandmother’s. My grandparents were able to flee Nazi Germany prior to the war. Decades later they were travelling somewhere when their plane had to make an emergency landing in Germany. My grandmother refused to deplane. She said that when she left she vowed she would never again set foot on German soil. The flight crew tried and tried to convince her but she refused. Finally, they decided to have my grandmother detained by the local authorities—– except that was when they received news that the plane had been repaired and was ready to continue on to its original destination. So yup, my grandmother travelled all over the world but never to Germany. (I remember my dad telling me I could go once —— see where the family is from and never go back. Also German Jewish on my Dad’s side– they didn’t flee)
🎶A three hour tour, a three hour tour🎶