Reader’s letter: Wizz Air’s lies and the truth about the cancelled flight to Madeira
Change language:
We reported last week about Wizz Air’s Madeira scandal here and here. The Hungarian low-cost airline’s plane could not land in Madeira due to strong winds. Thus, the passengers were taken to the nearby island of Tenerife. As a result, a group of passengers was stuck in Tenerife, while another group was stuck in Madeira – those who would have taken the return flight. Among all this ordeal was our reader, Anna. Now, Anna sent us an analysis of Wizz Air’s lies and the truth behind the miscommunication. Read her letter below.
On Tuesday last week, Wizz Air was unable to land on Madeira due to strong winds, and instead landed on the nearby island of Tenerife. Contrary to its promise, Wizz Air did not transfer passengers to Madeira the next day; instead, it took some of them back to Budapest, leaving those who chose to stay on Tenerife instead.
Meanwhile, passengers waiting to return home in Madeira were told that the earliest they could get home was on the next scheduled flight on Saturday (which, by the way, was already almost full of other passengers at the time of the announcement), and were finally sent on a relief flight on Friday, 3 days later than originally planned. The total number of passengers affected by these two groups is about 450. I am one of the passengers who never made it to Madeira.
RTL was the most detailed in its coverage of the incident, but even their report on Monday’s (yesterday’s) newscast revealed only partial bits of the truth, far from the whole truth, and the other news portals’ reports revealed even less, as they basically only relayed the MTI’s statement, which was a Wizz Air statement…
Wizz Air specifically lied about a number of things and, in addition to that, it also treated passengers in a blatantly unfair manner in a number of other respects. It is unacceptable to me and to the other passengers who have been harmed that this has not even been made public and that they will be allowed to do the same to thousands more passengers in the future without any consequences. My motivation in writing this message to you is to reveal the whole truth.
Below is a bullet-point summary of Wizz Air’s lies and unfairness, backed up by evidence.
Lie 1.
This is the statement made by Sándor Radó, Wizz Air’s Head of Communications, on Thursday last week and supplemented on Monday this week: “We have offered passengers two options, one is to stay in Tenerife and rebook for a later flight, or to fly home to Budapest.” “Passengers who bought their tickets through a travel agent or intermediary may not have been informed at all or may have been informed late.”
(SOURCE)
I booked my flight directly with Wizz Air myself, but I did not receive any information from them either by email or SMS. We have formed a Facebook group with the victims, which currently has 180+ members, with new members joining all the time (name: W62397-Funchal victims), where several other passengers have confirmed that they have not received any email or text message either, even though they booked their tickets directly with Wizz Air. No member of the group confirmed that they had received any information about this.
In addition, the ground staff at Tenerife airport specifically told us verbally when announcing the return to Budapest that those who choose to stay in Tenerife will pay all their own costs from now on, including their accommodation and return ticket. At the time of the announcement the ticket price for Wizz Air’s Saturday and Monday Tenerife – Budapest flights cost around HUF 40,000 (EUR 106), but the sudden surge in demand caused the price to first soar, then quickly sell out and some of those who opted to stay in Tenerife were left with no tickets at all, as confirmed by the Facebook group members concerned.
Lie 2.
Sándor Radó also said on Wednesday last week and Monday this week that the plane could not wait any longer for the wind to calm down because of the schedule: “The Wizz Air flight from Tenerife returned to Budapest on Wednesday afternoon in order to keep the schedule.”
(SOURCE)
“If the plane had continued to wait in Tenerife for the weather to become more favourable, more flights scheduled with this plane would have had to be cancelled from Budapest.”
(SOURCE)
According to the Flightradar24 website, the aircraft’s identification (9H-WBK) shows that the aircraft departed from Tenerife back to Budapest at 16:10 local time, landed in Budapest at 22:35 Budapest time and departed for Athens at 6:50 the next day. I have attached the evidence downloaded from here.
(SOURCE)
The Madeira airport website shows the arrivals for the day and the previous day, which I downloaded in time and attached as proof.
(SOURCE)
It shows that between 9:00 and 19:00, there were 9 planes that landed successfully among the cancelled or diverted flights, and after 19:00, all the planes of the day landed successfully, without exception, for a total of 10 in a row, so from then on, there were no more cancelled or diverted flights for the rest of the day.
After waiting at the airport for 8 hours, starting at 6:00, we were finally told at 14:10 by the airport staff that the flight would be turned back to Budapest with a 15:00 departure (which was delayed by over 1 hour for unexplained reasons). At the time the decision to turn back was made, the weather forecast had already clearly indicated that the winds would calm down in a few hours, allowing a safe landing in Madeira. If our plane had landed in Madeira after 19:00 and picked up the passengers waiting for their return flight, it would still have arrived in Budapest in time to allow several hours (at least 4 hours) before the 6:50 flight to Athens.
The fact that we were unable to land in Madeira on Tuesday last week due to strong winds was a force majeure, i.e. an extraordinary circumstance beyond Wizz Air’s control. However, the fact that they did not take us to Madeira the following day, Wednesday evening, was NOT due to force majeure, but was their individual decision, which they could have taken instead, handling the situation differently!
Injustice 1.
Wizz Air’s communication (via email and text messages) was unqualified throughout the process, both for those who did not get to Madeira and for those who were stranded there. The plane circled over Madeira for 1 hour, attempting a total of 2 landings, and then flew on to Tenerife, half an hour away, landing just after 19:00. At 17:45 and 22:45 local time (which is 1 hour earlier than the Budapest time) we received 2 emails and text messages with the same text: “We regret to inform you that flight W6 2397 has been changed. Please follow the information provided by our ground handling staff or flight attendants.”
We stood at the airport, clueless, not knowing what to do. Out of the 220+ passengers, I waited with what looked like a group of about 50. We didn’t know where the other passengers were, and we were getting information sporadically thanks to the proactive enquiries of the passengers from the airport ground staff, who shared their scraps of information with us. In this way, we learned that we were being bussed to hotels (a legal obligation for airlines, even if the planned landing was cancelled due to force majeure).
They were able to transport so many passengers in several rounds, the last round after a 2 hour wait after 21:00, they arrived at the hotel in Santa Cruz at 22:00 after a 50 minute bus ride. We were verbally informed by the hotel staff that the bus would be leaving back to the airport with us at 5:00. In an email and text message received at 20:25, Wizz Air informed us of an 8:00 take-off to Madeira, and in a text message received at 23:25, an 8:50 take-off to Madeira.
I then called the hotel reception to ask if Wizz Air had also delayed the 5:00 departure by 1 hour, hoping that I would have the chance to sleep for 6 hours instead of 5, after a long and exhausting day. The answer was no. So, between arrival and departure, I only had time to eat a hasty dinner, shower, sleep for 5 hours, and then again in the morning, hurry to get ready and eat some breakfast before boarding the bus.
We waited at the airport for 8 hours from 6:00 am onwards, without any information from Wizz Air either by email or SMS. The ground staff at the airport told us every hour or so that the departure was delayed and that they would be able to give us more information 1 hour later.
Finally, at 14:10, they announced that the flight would not be going to Madeira at all, but would be returning to Budapest at 15:00, and that everyone would have half an hour (!) until boarding to decide whether to go home or stay in Tenerife, with all costs from then on being paid by the passengers themselves, including accommodation and the purchase of a ticket home, all this during the peak tourist season at Easter, when there are plenty of tourists! After deciding to go home, I literally rushed to get to the bathroom and buy a sandwich for my travel lunch on the meal ticket I had been given, to avoid having to buy food on board at a sky-high price.
At 14:45 local time, I received the following email from Wizz Air, which is completely incomprehensible: “Please accept our sincere apologies for the diversion of your flight 2397 originally departing on 05.04.2023 from TFS to FNC. The local ground handling agents will assist you upon arrival on how you can be transported to the original destination.”
Again, and one can say as usual, Wizzair lied and mistreated it’s customers, showing criminal behavior and lawbreaking.
It’s incomprehensible how such an enterprise still exists and it’s owners are not in court or even prison already.
Cheese and rice, what a mess. Poor people. Imagine looking forward to a little break from all the B.S. going on in the world and you wind up having to deal with all this. Wizz Air really can’t buy a break it seems: Just about every single day there’s a story like this. The root cause is ultimately lack of empathy. So, so many problems in the world could be solved or avoided to begin with if those in positions of power and authority would be willing and able to put themselves in the shoes of the people they make decisions for/about.
Typical Hungarian service.
Hello – I was on a Wizzair flight from Vienna to Austria on monday this week. The exactly same thing happened to us (with small changes). I am guessing they have perfected this scam.
Small differences we experienced:
Upon landing in Teneriffa, the ground personell treated us terribly and would not organize a transport and pressured us into taking taxis at our own cost to get to different hotels.
On the following day, fhe flight from Teneriffe to Madeira was schedules at 7AM (my opinion is, they already knew they were flying back to Vienna). Boarding started approx an hour late, and they told us at rhe gate you either board or you stay strandes in Teneriffa at your own cost. We tried reasoning and demanded to talk to someone frok the crew or someone from Wizz, as we knew that we weather would improve that same day in the afternoon. We were yelled at, intimidated with security personell and pressured to board the plane as soon as possible. I also need to add the group was very calm and no agressive, as opposed to the ground personell in Teneriffa.
All in all, I would say avoid taking the Madeira flights with Wizz. We are not alone in this problem, the whole plane of people was also stuck on the island and had no way to get back home.