London Luton: Hungarian passengers stuck at the airport, stopped from flying

About 30 Hungarians were stopped from getting on the plane to Bratislava from London Luton on Monday. It is not precisely known why.

Due to the rapid spread of the new coronavirus variant in England, Hungary does not allow planes from the UK to enter since 22 December 2020 until 8 February 2020. The Hungarian citizens, therefore, were about to fly to Bratislava and then to travel to Hungary. Apparently, they did not find any information against doing so, Telex reports.

The Hungarian citizens have already been through the security check. Some had their luggage checked in too, but when they themselves were trying to check in, they found out that with a Hungarian passport, they are not allowed to enter Slovakia – not even if they had a PCR test done in not earlier than 72 hours.

The majority of them were from Hungary, but two other non-Slovakian people were stopped as well. The police in the meantime also arrived at the airport, but still, only those were allowed on the plane who were travelling home directly. The earlier checked-in luggage was taken down, and then the plane took off with an hour delay.

One of the Hungarian citizens said they let them know about this only half an hour before the plane was supposed to take off.

Another citizen also called the airport in Bratislava the day before, and they were not informed about any restrictions that would stop them from entering the country. As they told the newspaper, most of the Hungarians were about to go to Hungary from there anyways.

The Embassy of Hungary in London warned people about the rapidly changing restrictions on entering and leaving countries. On the site of the Hungarian consular service, they wrote about new quarantine measures when entering Bratislava from the UK, from 23 December, even with a negative PCR test. They also suggested planning to go to another country next to Hungary. But there was no information available on whether Hungarian citizens are not allowed to fly to Bratislava from the UK.

The Hungarian citizens asked the foreign services for help, but they did not understand why they were not allowed on the plane either.

Later in the afternoon, the airline allowed to reschedule the tickets of the 15 people that stayed there, for Tuesday to Košice. Wizz Air, in the end, apologised that the passengers were not let on the plane by mistake and offered compensations.

Source: Telex