After a temporary closure of a landing slot at Kyiv’s Zhuliany airport on Dec. 18, low-cost carrier Wizz Air informed 120 Ukrainian passengers that it couldn’t get them to Kyiv for another 10 days –and that they were virtually on their own in London, the United Kingdom’s priciest city, in the meantime.
Asked today to respond to the situation, Wizz Air forwarded an official policy statement.
The cancellation came after a catalogue of delays, during which the gate was changed three times and the terminal was evacuated because of a cigarette fire. During one of the moves, passengers were kept in a waiting area for 40 minutes without seats or access to toilets. At this point, company representatives announced that the flight was canceled, owing to a lack of crew to man the aircraft.
Passengers were then asked to collect their bags at the other side of the airport. Upon arriving at the claim they were met by armed police, and were told that the flight was canceled not because of a lack of crew, but instead because of bad weather in Kyiv.
While, under E.U. regulations, passengers are entitled to 600 euros of compensation if an airline fails to provide a crew, bad weather is considered an “act of God,” and therefore no compensation is required.
After their luggage arrived, over two hours later, passengers–the vast majority Ukrainian nationals– were told that the airline would only seat them on a flight to Ukraine on Dec. 27.
When passengers asked how they’d support themselves in London in the meantime, as well as what they could do about expiring visas, airline representatives said they’d pay for hotels for one night and travel expenses upon the presentation of receipts. They declined to elaborate, however, on how and to whom the receipts could be presented.
After heated arguments broke out, police officers clarified that Wizz Air had no financial obligation to the passengers under the circumstances.
By today, most passengers had booked alternate flights to Kyiv–through Warsaw or the Baltic states– at their own expense and without support from Wizz Air staff.
Meanwhile, the website Flight Tracker shows that despite the weather, the Wizz Air aircraft left London at 16:40 on Dec. 18 without passengers and landed 3.5 hours later at Zhuliany airport in Kyiv in order to reposition itself for the following day’s operations.
Martin Nunn, the CEO of Whites Communication in Kyiv, submitted this news story to the Kyiv Post on Dec. 20. He was a passenger on the canceled return flight to Kyiv.
