Disabled pensioners furious after being put on flight to Menorca instead of Majorca
The women's tickets were checked five times but they still ended up on the wrong flight.
Two disabled pensioners were astounded to learn they had been put on the wrong flight by airport staff and ended up in Menorca instead of Majorca.
Linda Trestrail, 69, and Wendy Russell, 71, had booked a package holiday to Mallorca with Jet2 and were just ten minutes from landing when they heard the plane’s captain say they would soon be in Menorca.
The pair, who were eventually flown to the correct destination, arriving 12 hours late, blame a ‘catalogue of errors’ by various staff and claim it ruined their holiday.
Jet2 have now issued an apology for what they describe as a ‘human error’, and said it was partly down to a third party special assistance provider at Bristol Airport, where they flew from.
The special assistance provider was the team responsible for taking the women, who have mobility issues, to the correct departure gate.
Linda and Wendy say they’re furious over the whole thing, especially as they were not offered compensation.
Linda, of Plymouth, Devon, said: ‘You hear of bags going on the wrong flights but not people.
‘The reason we booked Majorca is because of the short flight, we knew our mobility wasn’t good so didn’t want to do much travelling – we are disabled pensioners.
‘You get compensated if you get delayed or lose luggage – but they lost us, not the bloody baggage.
‘Jet2 holidays, the package holidays you can trust – yeah right.’
Linda said they arrived at Bristol Airport on September 26 last year and showed their tickets to the check-in desk, security, a person at the gate desk, as well as a member of ground crew staff on the bus – who even did a head count and confirmed the numbers.
She added: ‘Jet2 are the only ones who do double security checks on tickets – so they did that, and then we were directed to our seats on the flight.
‘One of the cabin crew came over to us and asked if we were sat in the correct seats, I said yes but she went off with our flight tickets – took them away and came back and said we were in our correct seats.
‘So we’re on our way, then I looked out the window and said to Wendy, ‘what’s that?’
‘We were going over land – I have been to Majorca before, and you arrive over the sea.
‘Then the captain says we are arriving in Menorca in 10 minutes! All hell broke loose.
‘I cried to Wendy, ‘Oh my god, Wendy! He said Menorca not Majorca!’
She said she told a flight attendant they were on the wrong plane and the woman ‘burst out laughing’.
It turns out, three seats on the Menorca flight were empty, and two of them matched Wendy and Linda’s seat numbers on the flight to Palma De Majorca.
After landing the horrified pair were told to stay on the plane, as the captain introduced himself and admitted he had never heard or experienced such an mistake in his whole career.
Wendy, who has had three brain operations and suffers from arthritis, said: ‘We went through five major checks there and no one picked up the error – it begs the question about what is going on.
‘They are banging on about security, security, security – but we could’ve been anybody.’
The ladies then waited several hours at Menorca airport, with the ‘kind assistance’ of a Jet2 manager there until finally boarding a flight to Majorca.
On landing they were reunited with their luggage – which had been put on the correct plane – and taken to their resort in a private car.
Linda said by the time they arrived, at which point the women had been travelling for 17 hours, they were in ‘such an awful state’, exhausted, legs and feet ‘like balloons’ and hardly able to move.
The Jet2 rep called to say she wasn’t able to meet them on arrival as she was no longer at the resort.
‘I was furious’, Linda explained.
Two days later they received a call from a different Jet2 rep who offered them a ‘free excursion’.
Linda said: ‘He told us that because of our ordeal, they were going to give us a free excursion – I said ‘Are you joking – a what?
‘Do you realise we can’t even walk let alone go for an excursion? We’ve been in a state.’
She added: ‘He told us to go to the CEO, Steven Heapy, when we got home and said we would be compensated.’
Wendy and Linda were apparently ‘famous’ on Majorca that week.
Linda said: ‘We went on the beach one day and a man came up to us and said, ‘You two aren’t the ladies who were put on the wrong flight?’
‘Everyone knew us.’
The pair, their travel agent Hays Travel and the women’s children all contacted Jet2 to complain about the ordeal, but they said they never heard back from the company.
They did, however, receive an apology from Bristol Airport.
After Linda and Wendy spoke to the media, a Jet2 spokesperson said: ‘We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Ms Trestrail and Ms Russell for this incident.
‘This is an extremely isolated incident and although there was no security risk, we have of course investigated it as a matter of urgency, including with the third-party special assistance provider.
‘We can confirm that the customers went through security correctly, and their luggage was also screened correctly.
‘However, after these checks the customers were taken to the incorrect aircraft, which is the responsibility of the third-party special assistance provider at the airport.
‘Upon boarding the aircraft, the incorrect destination on their boarding passes was unfortunately not identified and we apologise for this oversight which was down to human error.’
The spokesperson said Jet2 staff have been given additional training to ensure the mistakes are not made again.
They continued: ‘As soon as we learned of the issue, our team booked Ms Trestrail and Ms Russell onto the soonest available flight from Menorca to Majorca and they also provided all the assistance they could both throughout their journey and the rest of their holiday.
‘We have been in touch with Ms Trestrail and Ms Russell to offer an appropriate gesture of goodwill and once again offer our sincere apologies.
‘We understand they are due to travel with us once again this year, and we look forward to welcoming them onboard and delivering the usual VIP customer experience that we are recognised for.’
A spokesperson for Bristol Airport said: ‘Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention, we will continue to work with the airline and the special assistance provider to further investigate the circumstances and introduce improvements for the future.’
In 2022 a couple criticised Ryanair after they were allowed through a boarding gate at Manchester Airport and onto the wrong plane.
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