A woman has said her “human rights were breached” when she was stuck on a broken plane for nearly three hours and “trapped” on a shuttle bus for two more.
Passengers on a flight from Gatwick Airport headed to Ibiza on Saturday, August 26, were on a plane that had an engineering fault.
After nearly three hours on the easyJet plane on Saturday afternoon, the passengers were transferred to a shuttle bus.
Tamlyn Smithers, from Lewes, said that after hours on the plane while engineers tried to fix it, she and the other passengers were escorted onto shuttle buses which, they were told, would take them to a working plane.
This was at around 8pm, nearly three hours after she had boarded the plane at 5.15pm for her 5.45pm flight.
In that whole time, the 47-year-old was given just one plastic cup of water.
“We were then rammed onto two buses to get on a plane we could see next to us,” said Tamlyn.
Tamlyn, who was going to visit her brother, and other passengers were “relieved” to finally be moving as they were taken on to the buses.
But they were then “trapped” on the buses, which did not go anywhere, for more than two hours.
“It was so horrible,” said Tamlyn, a teacher and single mother.
“I watched really young children and parents banging on the bus windows asking for water and help.”
Tamlyn could not see the bus driver from her seat but said no one was helping the passengers.
“We had no information and were crammed into this increasingly hot glass box.
“There was no toilet access, no water and no food.”
Tamlyn said she was “incarcerated”.
“I had a panic attack and migraine from low blood sugars. People were all in states of anxiety and distress. I just fell apart,” said Tamlyn.
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After around two hours in the stationary bus, police turned up.
Tamlyn said: “We were then finally told our flight had been cancelled and that we were being taken back to the lounge.
“Police cars escorted our buses and officers escorted us out of the departure area.”
Sussex Police confirmed they were called to an incident “relating to passenger behaviour” at Gatwick Airport shortly after 10pm on Saturday, August 26.
A spokesman for the force said: “This incident was a result of a flight cancellation.
“Officers attended the gate to support staff and explained to passengers that the flight had been cancelled.
“The passengers then left the area with officers standing down at 11.30pm. No offences were committed during this incident.”
Tamlyn said she and other passengers were told they could not have their flight rescheduled.
When she finally got back to the lounge, there were no trains and she had to spend £99 on a taxi back to Lewes.
She finally got home at 12am.
“I’m of course disappointed about missing out on the trip but it’s just unbelievable how unnecessarily horrible this experience was,” Tamlyn said.
She is now hundreds of pounds out of pocket and said she cannot get a refund for her return flight as it was with a different provider.
A spokeswoman for easyJet said: “We are sorry that flight EZY8103 from Gatwick to Ibiza on August 26 was unable to operate due to a technical issue prior to take off. We did all possible to minimise the impact for customers providing updates on board while our engineers endeavoured to fix the issue and as this was unfortunately not possible we provided options to transfer to an alternative flight for free or receive a refund as well as hotel accommodation where required.
“We are also very sorry to hear of Ms Smithers experience on the bus and we are investigating this with the coach provider at Gatwick Airport as this is not the level of service we expect for our customers. The safety and well-being of our passengers and crew is always easyJet's highest priority.
“While we haven’t yet received a claim for compensation or expenses from Ms Smithers our customer support team have reached out to ensure her well-being and that she receives the compensation she is due.”
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