Sir,
As a passenger of the disastrous CY flight 939 from Dubai last week, I read your article (CY looks into Dubai debacle, Cyprus Mail July 9) with interest, as it would appear that the Cyprus Mail does not have all the facts of the Cyprus Airways fiasco.
1. Firstly, the delay was 24 hours, not eight or nine as mentioned in the newspaper report.
2. The Cyprus Airways office in Dubai was contacted by my fiance when the office opened on Monday morning – and he was fobbed of with “not my responsibilty” type responses. BUT how could the CY Airways rep in Cyprus have NOT been made aware of the situation by Dubai staff, the crew or the airport personnel involved? It was already a serious issue by then.
3. Passengers waiting in Bahrain were told that the flight was cancelled and taken to hotels after 4 hours. In Dubai, we were still being told at 6.30 am that the technical problem was fixed and we would leave “soon”.
4. Around 6.45 am Dubai passengers were herded into an airport bus to be driven around the terminal for 45 mins as a diversion tactic – twice! However, as you can imagine, being shut in a bus and driven around meaninglessly just inflamed the whole situation. A near riot broke out once angry passengers demanded we be allowed off the bus.
5. Many passengers took the opportunity once in Dubai hotels to write their letters of complaint to Cyprus Airways. At least a dozen letters were passed on to the airport authorities.
6. The flight did not arrive on Monday night – it touched down in Larnaca at 4am on Tuesday morning.
7. The crew were themselves kept waiting onboard the flight from 6pm on Sunday until 5am on Tuesday and were told the passengers had been accommodated in hotels from the previous evening. We actually met them at the airport desk while our hotel rooms were being booked!
8. Passenegers were lied to constantly throughout the debacle; about the possibility of leaving that night, about not having permission to give refreshments, about the farce on the bus, about a CY rep flying in from Mumbai to deal with us.
Several passengers, including myself, were planning a short stay in Cyprus, and others were going to employment appointments. My own five-day trip was effectively curtailed to three days, as one day was required for sleeping to recharge very depleted energy levels from sleep deprivation. Not to be offered refreshments for eight hours for the able-bodied among us was appalling; for the two disabled ladies in wheelchairs and small children it was totally unacceptable. We were not offered telephone calls or any method of communication with family or loved ones until we finally reached a hotel early on the morning of the July 7 – and then a three minute call only.
We know that, by EU law, we should have been offered refreshments and alternative accommodation and/or travelling arrangements long before the airport authorities stepped in to help. In the case of the CY representative being ‘on holiday’ there must be an assistant with the authority to deal with serious problems like this – or worse.
Our confidence in CY has been severely compromised. We request that full compensation be paid at the earliest to all passengers whose travel plans were so dreadfully disrupted by the total inefficiency of CY.
Sue Le Boutillier
UK
