Tourism | The elderly couple’s journey home from Fuengirola turned into a two-day drama of suffering

“I am now understood what predictability and reliability mean in the aviation business in the German way: you can count on the fact that the flight is always late!”

That’s what a pensioner from Helsinki said Jarmo Aaltonen after he finally got his wife home Jaana Aaltonen with from Fuengirola in Spain a couple of weeks ago.

The closest airport to Fuengirola is in Malaga. A direct flight from Malaga to Helsinki takes less than five hours, but Jarmo and Jaana made the journey home over two days.

The Aaltos travel a lot and know very well that sometimes flights can be late. Recently, however, they have been constantly running into problems.

“During the fall, we have flown on German Lufthansa flights eight times, and none of the flights have been on time,” says Jaana Aaltonen.

In addition to this, there have also been problems with luggage, and even from Fuengirola, the Aaltons’ bags did not arrive home until a couple of days after them.

However, the culmination of the saga took shape from the long journey home from Fuengirola to Helsinki.

“Grande catastrophe”, Jaana Aaltonen describes.

Of the waves was originally supposed to return from a month and a half trip to Fuengirola, Spain on December 13th. The return flight from Malaga was supposed to leave at 5 p.m., and the Aaltos were supposed to change planes in Frankfurt so that they would be in Helsinki late in the evening.

However, the return flight was canceled even before the Aaltos had even left for the entire trip. The company announced by text that Aaltoset had been transferred to a flight departing from Frankfurt earlier that day.

“However, the problem was that at the point when we should have already boarded the plane in Frankfurt, our plane would not have even left Malaga yet,” says Jaana Aaltonen.

Aaltosia wondered how Lufthansa’s system had no information that they had a connecting flight, when both flights were operated by the same company.

However, the matter was sorted out when Jaana Aaltonen finally got the customer service clerk on the phone.

The official postponed the return of Aaltosten to a day later. However, the knowledge that the exchange schedule in Frankfurt would be tight: one hour and ten minutes, caused a little excitement.

On the return day The waves went to the field in good time, but in vain: the flight was late. But how much, it was not immediately said. The couple quickly realized that they would not make it to their connecting flight in Frankfurt.

“The plane was supposed to leave at five, but six o’clock came and the plane was still on the ground. Seven came, eight came… In the end, it wasn’t until nine that we were able to leave,” says Jaana Aaltonen.

On the plane, the Aaltos tried to ask the staff how they should act at the airport in Frankfurt, when their connecting flight to Helsinki would have already left.

“The staff couldn’t do anything other than say that you just walk straight to the service desk, and the matter will be resolved there.”

When the Aaltos arrived in Frankfurt in the middle of the night, however, the service desk was closed, and it wouldn’t open until seven in the morning. All other places were already closed at the airport.

“Everyone had already gone to sleep.”

In addition it was freezing cold on the field. Jaana Aaltonen guesses that the temperature was less than a dozen degrees indoors.

“The heating was probably compromised for reasons of energy saving.”

At that point, they had already received text messages on their phones that they had been booked on the flight from Frankfurt to Helsinki on Friday.

“It was only a day and a half away! The message didn’t say a word about where we should have waited for that time.”

Aaltosen started calling airport hotels to see if they could stay overnight. However, everyone was fully booked.

According to Aaltonen, there were a whole bunch of other passengers in the same mess.

“I don’t know which airline they were passengers on, but in any case all the seats were occupied. People slept in the corridors wrapped in their spare clothes. Some had sleeping bags.”

Aalto had no extra clothes to hang on to keep warm. Passengers at the end of Malaga had been instructed to also put hand luggage in the hold, because the plane was getting so full.

“Well, we had the leather gloves that I had bought just before leaving Malaga, but that’s all!”

Now it’s a little funny.

At two in the morning The Aaltos gave up and decided to just wait until the morning for the customer service desk to be staffed. They found one open cafe in the field and a place where it was a little warmer.

On Thursday morning, the Aaltos arrived at the customer service desk even before it opened.

“At that point, the advertising queue was already hundreds of meters long,” says Jaana Aaltonen.

At the service desk, the clerk agreed to reserve a hotel for Aaltos. However, it was only possible to log in there in the afternoon at 3 p.m.

“At that point we were already so tired that it felt like we were two and a half alcohol drunk. When I told the clerk that we’ve been awake for over a day and we should go to sleep right away, the clerk just said he couldn’t help.”

In the end, check-in to the hotel was already successful, but the Aaltons had to pay an extra 45 euros for it themselves. They also paid for the taxi to the hotel themselves.

“Sleep came immediately in the hotel. We slept for six hours first, then we went to eat in between and after that we went back to sleep. I slept well for the next ten hours as well.”

However, the Aaltos could not change their clothes or brush their teeth, as their luggage had been cleared from Malaga directly to Helsinki.

“And no the flight on Friday also left on time”, sighs Jaana Aaltonen.

One more surprise awaited at Helsinki-Vantaa airport: Aaltosten’s luggage had not arrived in Helsinki.

“I had bags full of gifts for my grandchildren. I already had time to think about whether I should go buy new gifts next,” says Jaana Aaltonen.

The bags finally found their way to the Aaltons’ home two days later on Sunday. Even after them, Jaana Aaltonen had to call.

When the Aaltones flew to Albania with Lufthansa earlier in the fall, the luggage wandered around Albania for a couple of days before finding its owners.

“Then when we got a text that the bags could be picked up, there was a big pile of bags without owners waiting on the field. I think some of those who were on the same flight didn’t have time to get their bags during their entire vacation,” says Aaltonen.

Before this autumn, Aaltos has had a good image of Lufthansa: a reliable German airline, but at the same time cheaper than, for example, Finnair.

Jaana Aaltonen emphasizes that there was nothing wrong with the ride itself.

“The plane flew well and landed beautifully, but now I wonder about the level of customer service. Customers didn’t seem to be interested in anyone anymore. First we are rushed to the gate, then suddenly the plane is late. It felt like we were just cattle to be moved,” says Jaana Aaltonen.

“I don’t understand what has happened.”

Lufthansa is the second largest airline in Europe after Ryanair.

It has by no means been the only airline to have problems since the pandemic. There have also been queues and chaos at airports, when people want to travel again after a break of a couple of years.

The pandemic hit the aviation industry hard. During the pandemic, many moved to other jobs, and when tourism recovered, it has been difficult to get employees to return due to poor wages and unpleasant working hours. At European airports, workers have also gone on strike.

In the summer, Lufthansa approached its customers with an open letter, in which it apologized for the continued flight cancellations. In the letter, the airline said that it was constantly increasing its capacity and promised that the situation would be corrected by the summer of 2023.

Next Aaltoten should prepare a compensation claim for the airline. In that context, they can also try to claim compensation for the early check-in at the hotel and taxi trips that they paid for themselves.

According to EU legislation, you must receive compensation for flight delays if the flight is delayed by more than three hours. The amount of compensation depends on the length of the trip. On intra-European flights, compensation ranges from 250 to 400 euros per ticket.

For Jaana Aalto, the thought of applying for compensation hurts.

“I’ve heard that it hasn’t been easy to get them. I also already had time to research on the company’s website how to make a compensation claim and after that they started offering me ads for legal assistance to get compensation! I wouldn’t have thought that you could need legal help for that too, but apparently you can,” Jaana Aaltonen updates.

Aaltonen would like to say that he will never fly with Lufthansa again, but unfortunately he already had time to book the next flights before the latest altercation. The couple is heading to Fuengirola again in February.

Now they have already positioned themselves so that the journey can last.

“Fortunately, we are retired, we have time. If you were still working, it would be a shame to have to take sick days because of the airline’s unreliability. But now I already know how to take spare cups and a toothbrush with me on the plane!”

HS could not reach anyone from Lufthansa to comment on the incident. The company also did not respond to e-mails sent to them.