Dozens of airline passengers have been grounded in Spain because of preferential treatment for a soccer team. The incident occurred late on Saturday evening and caused criticism and excitement in Spain, and not just among those affected. The renowned newspaper “El País” spoke on Monday of a “surrealistic situation”. What happened? The airline Air Nostrum canceled its flight from Vigo to Madrid without replacing it in order to transport the Sevilla FC team on the designated plane because the plane chartered by the club was defective and unusable.
“This only happens in a banana republic. “For us, football is allowed to take everything and everyone by surprise,” “El País” quoted one affected man as saying. Other media wrote that the airline had allowed the footballers to “push forward” and to “leave the affected customers to their fate” in Vigo in the northwest of the country at a late hour.
According to media reports, there was no flight to the capital for those affected the following day, so most of them covered the approximately 600 kilometers between Vigo and Madrid by bus and taxi on Sunday because they did not want to miss appointments or intercontinental connecting flights. According to media reports, a total of between 80 and 95 people were affected.
Hans-Günter Kellner, Madrid Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 3 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 14 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1
Die Airline has since admitted the “regrettable mistake”., which was solely the responsibility of the company. “Next week we will contact all affected passengers to compensate them for the inconvenience caused. We sincerely apologize,” said X, formerly Twitter. A victim on X: “Apologies are not enough. We were left without a flight because you have priorities that neither we nor anyone else understand.”
