Horrid flight as passengers stuck on 32-hour trip to nowhere — and wind up right back where they started
It was quite the odyssey.
Passengers endured a mind-numbing, 32-hour flight to nowhere after a Condor flight to Greece was forced to turn around and return home following multiple failed trips.
The Sisyphean journey occurred on May 24 when Condor flight DE1234 was embarking on what was supposed to be a routine 1,198-mile flight from Zurich to Heraklion in Crete, Greece, One Mile At A Time reported.
Despite departing around 30 minutes late, the flight appeared to be going swimmingly. After a short two hours, the plane began its initial descent to the idyllic Greek isle.
Unfortunately, the aircraft's landing was hampered by powerful winds, which forced it to circle around for a prolonged period before the pilot decided to divert to Athens and refuel.
They touched down at the Greek capital at 11:24 a.m. local time — three hours after they'd originally departed Zurich.
Around two and a half hours later, the crew made a second attempt to ferry the 137 passengers to Heraklion, only to be boomeranged yet again.
The weather conditions were still quite severe. After circling around again, they decided to divert to Kos, a nearby Greek island, to refuel, landing at 3:28 p.m. after a 1.5-hour flight.
As the aircraft was once again running dangerously low on fuel, the decision was made to divert to Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, which the crew felt was a good place for the passengers and flight attendants to spend the night.
They reportedly touched down at 6:04 after an approximately one-hour flight — a whopping 11 hours after they'd initially left Zurich.
The following day at 9 a.m., the crew decided to make one last attempt to get to Crete, but found themselves in a holding pattern yet again due to the wind — like de ja flew.
Again, they were forced to divert to Athens, whereupon the crew decided to call it quits and fly back to Zurich, arriving a full 32 hours after their initial departure.
Condor reps said that 'due to extreme weather conditions and strong winds, takeoffs and landings at Heraklion Airport were only possible to a limited extent.'
During the fruitless journey, they had reportedly landed a total of five different times. To make matters worse, flyers were only given a glass of water and nothing else during the whole flight while many passengers vomited during the approaches to Heraklion because of the powerful winds.
Upon arriving at Thessaloniki, meanwhile, flyers were forced to float their own hotel rooms, although they are entitled to reimbursement under European aviation guidelines.
This isn't the first time passengers have experienced an inadvertent round trip.
Last June, British Airways passengers flew for hours across the Atlantic Ocean — only for the plane to turn around and return halfway through their trip due to a technical issue.
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