A man today told of his anger after he was forced to leave a plane at Luton because it was overbooked - even though he had a seat.Wha..?
Danielius Jancauskas, 33, was flying off for a school reunion in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Saturday. But minutes before the Wizz Air flight was due to take off, staff ordered him and another man, who had been "selected at random", to disembark because there were not enough seats.Yes, they’d actually taken their places before the staff realised they’d sold too many seats..!
That’s impressive work! EasyJet and RyanAir have some catching up to do!
Mr Jancauskas was escorted off the plane by police and then told there were no available flights until the following day.Yes, they had to get the police involved, didn’t they…
Mr Jancauskas, who is considering legal action, said the other man had to leave his family, including young children, on board. A Wizz Air spokesman today apologised and said: "This is a standalone case in our airline's practice."I’m not sure you spelt ‘scandalous’ right there…
8 comments:
I must say, this does strike me as somewhat bizarre behaviour by the Airline ..
Going purely on the facts, as given .. its not as if all the seats were already occupied & these two blokes were standing in the aisle (as you might on a bus or tube train) ..
Still, as none of us were there, I suspect we'll never know the complete story ..
Unless, of course .. someone out there has "inside" info ..
Ryan Air used to do something similar, although they used to claim that the person asked to leave had being drinking (and does anyone fly RA without being half cut?).
It's what happens when some flight crew need a 'lift' home. Most of the flight crews of the Budget Airlines now come from the former Soviet Block and if one of them needs a flight home...
Happens all the time. Seriously it does.
@ SBC ...
Ahhh .. thanks for that .. all becomes a little clearer now ..
SBC 'Ryan Air used to do something similar'
Of course, if O'Leary gets his way and axes the co-pilot, there'll always be an extra seat up front...
(apologies for linking to my version, but it's more succinct than the relevant article)
To any of our readers in America, yes we really do have an airline that is named after piss. And as you can see, it's not exactly inappropriate. So no need to write to them to wise them up....
I was on a flight in the US once that had been over booked (someone once told me it happens a lot as most flights have a small number of people who don't show up and sometimes they oversell by about that number in order to try and fill the plane - but now and again everyone turns up after all). They did get a few people off the plane and onto a later flight, but they didn't drag them off with a police escort. They just offered increasing amounts of money until they had enough volunteers, all of whom ended up a few hundred dollars better off as a result. Don't know if they still do that kind of thing over there but it seems a much better way of handling it.
"I must say, this does strike me as somewhat bizarre behaviour by the Airline .."
Not according to SBC!
"...and does anyone fly RA without being half cut?"
Not if they've got any sense...
"Of course, if O'Leary gets his way and axes the co-pilot, there'll always be an extra seat up front..."
Yikes!
"To any of our readers in America, yes we really do have an airline that is named after piss."
:D
"... but they didn't drag them off with a police escort. They just offered increasing amounts of money until they had enough volunteers..."
Now that's a MUCH better way of doing it.
My Wizzair flight back to UK was half boarded, then they made us all get off. No explanation for about three hours.
Then they said there were 19 free seats on another flight going to a different UK airport. Anybody want them? No info offered on the status of our plane.
The luggage of the 19 lucky volunteers was unloaded. Off they went.
Immediately, the rest of us got back on our plane, and we're off, to the right destination.
The pilot explained later that there was a fault with a door. To fly with fewer exits, they needed to reduce the passenger numbers. They couldn't explain, or nobody would have volunteered.
I always travel no-frills. It's cheap. You get what you pay for.
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