RomaniaTravel organization TUI flew the travelers who stranded in Bucharest on Saturday evening back home on Sunday. Due to a broken window, the aircraft, which was en route from Antalya to Rotterdam, had to make an emergency landing at the airport of the Romanian capital.
The cockpit window was damaged during the flight for unknown reasons. Stranded passengers complained that they had been left to their own devices at the airport. For example, TUI was unable to arrange an overnight stay for 189 travelers. Many of them spent the next night at the airport.
TUI acknowledges that it has not been possible to accommodate the group. The organization has explained that there are often still individual hotel rooms in a city. ‘We have also informed our passengers that in the event that they find a room themselves, we will reimburse those costs. It is very unfortunate that it was a very uncomfortable night for many of these travelers.’
TUI emphasizes that an airplane window cannot be replaced quickly. That is why we immediately looked for another device to pick up the passengers. The replacement aircraft departed from Bucharest at the end of the morning and has since landed in Rotterdam.
birds
TUI flight OR3042 departed from Antalya on Saturday evening at 6:53 pm, the site reports Flight radar24. It made an emergency landing at Bucharest airport around 9am. The cockpit window was so damaged that the pilot had to swerve. The crew initially informed passengers that this was due to a collision with birds, but that was again contradicted on Sunday morning.
“I saw the dent and the almost shattered window, but couldn’t take a picture,” passenger Kim Heijdenrijk wrote on Twitter. ‘Passengers were able to take pictures of the extensive damage to the cockpit window. It explains the slight panic on board and the uncontrolled, hard emergency landing.’
burst
It concerned a Boeing 737 that was leased from the Canadian airline Sunwing. A TUI spokesperson cannot say anything about the cause, but confirms that cracks appeared in the cockpit window during the flight. “A plane window does not just break, even if there are cracks in it, but the safety of passengers and crew comes first.”
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Another passenger, Arjan van ‘t Hof, informed this site that passengers had been left to their own devices ever since. “We spent two hours in the aircraft, after which we were allowed to leave it and overnight accommodation would be arranged. This was confirmed by a text message from TUI. However, the local employees already said before that there would be no overnight stay.”
The passengers have heard nothing more from the pilots and cabin crew. “The crew would escort us to the gate and provide us with information, but they were already in a hotel,” said Van ‘t Hof. “Something was arranged for them. We had to gather all the information ourselves.”
According to the Dutchman, TUI gave ‘conflicting information’ and the airline was difficult to reach. The text was initially sent to passengers on another TUI flight. “We then received a text message from TUI in the middle of the night that they were unable to arrange an overnight stay.”
Without baby food and medicines
The passengers had to spend the night at the gate. Photos shared by Van ‘t Hof show passengers sleeping on the floor in the hall, and young children in a buggy. A woman has been in a wheelchair all night. There are no sleeping facilities at the airport. Babies, toddlers and many preschoolers cannot rest properly because of this. People slept on cold floors,” says Van ‘t Hof.
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,,We were distraught and had to spend the night under bizarre circumstances because TUI eventually requested through a text message to possibly book a hotel, while we were not allowed to leave the airport at all and could not have access to our luggage at all. Mothers had no access to baby food and diapers, the elderly were without medicines.
A pregnant woman and a couple have been taken to a hotel, the Dutchman says. They have now received a voucher of 25 euros to buy sandwiches and water.
No space
TUI called the “uncomfortable night” for passengers “extremely regrettable”, but said there was no room for such a large group in a hotel. The airline offered to reimburse the costs for individual hotel rooms that passengers had to arrange themselves, but most of them spent the night at the airport.
“A local handling agent was immediately instructed to look for hotel rooms for our passengers,” said a TUI spokesperson. “That turned out to be very difficult. There was no availability for this group. There are often still separate hotel rooms in a city, so we have also informed our passengers that in case they find a room themselves, we will reimburse those costs.”
In the summer of 2015, a KLM plane also had to make a precautionary landing due to a sudden crack in the windscreen. The aircraft, which was en route from Athens to Amsterdam, was forced to land in Prague, as the pressure slowly dropped and it became more difficult to breathe in the cockpit.
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