2024-04-21 12:47:19
“As we speak, I should be in the desert. » Tatiana Carreras still hasn’t digested that her dream of a vacation in Jordan has been taken away from her. On April 14, she, her partner and her two little girls were on board a Vueling Barcelona-Amman flight, when their plane had to turn around around thirty minutes before landing, due to the closure of the Jordanian airspace following tensions in the region. The start of trouble.
All the passengers then went first to Athens, then to their Catalan departure point. Before 48 hours of blur. “We arrived in Barcelona, Vueling told us that we would have two nights paid but we had no other information. Each passenger tried individually to contact the company, but the versions were different each time,” Tatiana rewinds.
However, this is far from being his main grievance against the Spanish low-cost airline. The mother assures that a Vueling operator suggested to her that the next flight to Amman, scheduled for April 16, would also be canceled. “After yet another call with customer service, we were told that we had to take a Barcelona-Paris flight at our own expense, and that we would then be reimbursed,” assures Tatiana.
Confusion
But once she arrived in Paris, Tatiana learned by email that she and her family had finally been put back on the Barcelona-Amman flight on April 16, which she thought was canceled. Tatiana contacts the company, which denies having indicated the cancellation of the flight and tells her that she will ultimately not be reimbursed for her Barcelona-Paris flight. A loss of around 500 euros. “I was told that I had returned to Paris on my own initiative and therefore that I would not be reimbursed, even though it was an operator who advised me to do so,” she regrets.
Another Vueling customer also claims to have received bad information about the Barcelona-Amman flight on April 16. “As Vueling had already postponed our flight for the first time at the beginning of April and we had not heard anything, I decided to call the company the day before our departure to ensure that the flight was maintained. That’s when an operator told me that it would be canceled,” says Marie (first name has been changed), who was going on vacation with her partner.
She then made the decision to cancel all of her reservations on site… before realizing, like Tatiana, on the day of departure, that the flight had indeed left for Amman. “As the company considers that I am responsible for not having taken the plane, I cannot be reimbursed for my tickets” which amount to 700 euros round trip, she laments.
Contacted by Le Parisien, Vueling ensures that it followed its usual procedure. “In order to limit inconvenience for our passengers, full refund options as well as the possibility of changing flights with flexibility of approximately 60 days have been activated,” says the company, while opening the door to discussion. In a message to our newspaper, she “recommends” that these passengers “contact the company in order to examine their case individually”.
“We had been preparing our departure for a year”
As if all this were not enough, Marie and Tatiana cannot get their “Jordan pass” refunded either. This ticket, worth around 100 euros per person, includes the visa for Jordan as well as access to the main non-religious tourist sites. “It is valid for one year but we don’t know if we will have the opportunity to reschedule this trip,” worries Tatiana.
“We had been preparing our departure for over a year. It was our first family trip, the first time our daughters were going to take a plane,” says the mother. “One of my daughters had even learned some Arabic in preparation for this trip,” she continues, dejected.
“We understand that there are international tensions but we would have liked Vueling to be more human in its support,” concludes Tatiana.
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