What was meant to be a simple two and a half hour flight back to London-Gatwick Airport (LGW) from Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI) ended in a 30-hour ordeal that included floods at the airport, an overnight delay and soaking wet luggage.
Passenger Evie Clark took to social media platform TikTok to share her experience, which she described as “30 hours of hell”.
In the video, Clark said that her flight was delayed for 10 hours.
On the weekend of September 2-3, 2023, PMI airport experienced 100 delayed flights and six canceled flights due to storm Dana bringing torrential rains across Spain.
Clark then decided to rest and take a nap on the floor to pass the time, but said she woke up to find that the airport was flooding. Clark’s video included a clip of water pouring from the ceiling.
According to Clark, her airline, easyJet, gave passengers €9 ($9.72) food vouchers as compensation. However, she found that the cafe where she had intended to use the vouchers was closed, despite it only being 14:00 local time.
Clark said she waited another nine hours before being told to go up to the gates, so everyone thought that they could finally depart.
However, moments later, Clark was advised that her flight was canceled and rescheduled to depart the following morning at 08:00 local time.
Clark said that the airline promised passengers a hotel room because of the overnight delay. So she, along with other passengers, had to exit the airport and collect her luggage to go to the hotel.
When Clark found her luggage though, she said both the outside and inside, which included personal clothing and books, were wet. Clark said she was told the bags had been “left out in the rain”.
Setting the issue of wet luggage aside, Clark then joined a long queue of other delayed passengers inquiring about overnight hotel stay.
Clark, along with five to six other families, then took a shuttle to get to the hotel where they were informed that no rooms had been booked for them and only “one or two” were available.
One of the families, Clark said, had a newborn baby, so it was unanimously decided by other passengers that the family should be given the room.
“My stuff is drenched, we have nowhere to sleep, and all they gave us was a €9 food voucher,” Clark said.
Clark posted a follow-up video where she revealed that she was already back in London, but shared that the journey had been “absolute chaos”.
Clark said that one of the passengers became disruptive and had to be removed from the flight prior to departure. Overall, she said she was glad to be home despite the almost two-day ordeal.