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42hr holiday ordeal
A SCHEDULED four-hour trip from Glasgow Airport turned into a 42-hour ordeal for 200 travellers.
Their Boeing 757 left on Friday at 7.30am, but did not arrive at Corfu, Greece, until yesterday.
The Thomson flight was forced to land at Thessolonika with technical problems. It was refuelled and took off for Corfu but aborted the landing due to bad weather.
It then returned to Thessolonika, where it was refuelled again and eventually flew to Athens, where it was grounded for the night.
Passengers were put up in a hotel in Athens, but when they returned to the airport on Saturday morning they were delayed again. It flew out late on Saturday and arrived yesterday.
Publication date 26/10/09
Oh my............thats half your holiday gone...Glad i wasn't on it.
riggers.
After driving home, 25 miles in the dark, I have changed my mind and I now wish I had been on the flight. I would now be in a very quiet Arillas completely chilled out and relaxed. Sigh!!!!!!!!!
im glad i wasnt on that flight either but at least they got there eventually
Phew! Must of been some nervous take off's and landings, especially with the bad weather *shivers*
thanx terry
ill stick with e/j..........yammas
I was just browsing through the forum when I found this thread and realised that I was on this flight!! I was travelling with my Mother who is in her 70's to attend a family christening in Arillas. We made the christening by the skin of our teeth! Not only that, it was the most frightening experience of my life!
Christ almighty lizzy! Bet you were both ready for a large Ouzo when you finally got to that christening!! Lol
Sounds terrible Lizzy - it must seem a bit surreal now.
Conflicting emotions too.
I was involved in the AsianTsunami -a frightening experience, but for us who survived, a strangely life affirming one ..
And yes Jo - I agree - a glass of ouzo, purely for medicinal purposes was definately required.......
Yammas!
Nora x
omg
lizzie and nora ,,its weird what life throws at us ,,but were all still here and must live life to the max ,yammas
More like a bottle than a glass of ouzo:-) Still,can always say i've been to Thessolonika and Athens. Agree with you all,got to live life to the max. Strange how a crisis brings people together,think I spoke to everyone on that plane. Not put me off though, been twice since;-)
lizzy luvver you don't need justifying anything. Arilliacs are diverse: rich, poor, male, female, gay, straight, black, white, ill, well and everything in between.
Quotebeen twice since
We have been 12 times, 14 by end of 2012, others just stay for good - who cares? It's not a competition, or a league table. The point is finding that X-Factor. And when you find it you will never escape. Not that you'll want to.
Phil
Wonder how often this happens. My sister left Corfu on Friday 17th June last year and eventually arrived home on Monday 20th June after having to land in Brindisi Italy due to technichal problems. We now refer to it as her 2 centre holiday but at the time not very funny. We also had a problem coming to Bristol from Crete ten years ago and had to divert to Gatwick as wing flaps were stuck. Met by emergency vehicles, again not nice but are these problems quite common. No wonder I hate flying.
June
Hasn't put me off flying! Thats what I meant by stating I had returned twice. Think I may have found that X-factor,can't stop browsing through all these great photos and videos on this forum.
OMG reminds me of our aborted landing at Corfu in October 2010. Have never felt so scared! Captain made two attempts to land and then ascended dramatically twice before announcing (and I kid you not) "I am aborting this landing now owing to nil visibility on the Corfu landing strip. I am not willing to compromise the safety of myself, my crew and you the passengers any further." Realised as we were diverted to Athens just where we were in the scheme of things! However, lovely hotel in Athens and a good (hysterical, slightly) laugh with new friends!
One year we had a delayed landing due to lack of fuel.... we had to go to Brindisi for a top up and then go back and try to land at Corfu... It was raining in Brindisi and we hoped it wasnt raining in Corfu.. fortunately it wasnt when we landed, but we were so pleased to land safely.. I was having visions of us dropping into the sea because we had run out of "petrol" and Corfu airstrip is always a bit dodgy to land anyway.
Amazing memories BG. Guess we've all got some. Hope you get back to Arillas (without terrifying flights!) one day soon.
Phil
Hi Phil... we would love to go back to Arillas, we have such fond memories there.. Cant see that happening as yet, we have just moved, I had a hospital scare and Mike is still hobbling along with his bad foot... I check in here now and again to get my "fix" to keep the memlories alive! Love to all xx
We flew back into Liverpool from Lanzarote 3 weeks ago. Nice smooth flight with Ryanair. We were feet away from landing when the engines gave a huge surge and the plane gained height again. We did a leisurly sight-seeing circle over Liverpool and came in to land again 10 mins later. I looked for the building I had last seen when the surge happened and it was 20 yards from the runway hedges. The pilot said he had seen "traffic on the runway". Oh how we laughed. :-S