Four-hour flight turns into two-day Greek odyssey for weary travellers

IT SHOULD have been a short hop to some late autumn sun but for a group of Scottish holidaymakers it turned into a marathon.

Passengers leaving Glasgow on Friday for the Greek islands had expected to be in the air just a few hours.

But instead they were hit with a series of delays, mechanical failures and weather problems which saw their short trip turn into a 42-hour Greek tragedy.

The Thomson Holidays flight 1522 with more than 200 people on board left Glasgow airport at 7:30am on Friday bound for Corfu.

The normal four-hour flight first ran into trouble when it had to land at Thessaloniki on the Greek mainland with technical problems.

After it was refuelled, the plane took off for Corfu.

But many of the Greek islands have been swept by severe thunderstorms over the past few days and the pilot was forced to abort the landing because of bad weather.

The flight returned to Thessaloniki where passengers had to wait as the plane was refuelled for a second time before taking off for Athens where it was grounded for the night.

The now somewhat travel-worn passengers were put up in a hotel in the Greek capital and hoped to fly on to their holiday destination the next day.

But when they returned to the airport on Saturday morning, they were delayed again after the plane developed a hydraulic pipe leak. Engineers spent much of the day repairing the problem as passengers sat and waited in the airport before they were eventually allowed back on board.

The plane finally flew out late on Saturday night, arriving in Corfu early yesterday morning, some 42 hours after leaving Glasgow.

Rab Hall, a builder from Crossmichael, near Castle Douglas, who was flying to Corfu for a week-long holiday, said: "

It's supposed to be a three- or four-hour flight but this has turned into a marathon. You expect delays, especially at holiday time, but you don't expect to be held up for two days."

His wife Elsie, a shop assistant who was due to celebrate her birthday on Saturday, said: "There's not much chance of celebrating it now with all these delays. It was £9 for a beer in the hotel in Athens."

She added: "When we got to the airport on Saturday morning, we were told there were technical difficulties and we would be delayed for another four hours. It's absolutely terrible. But it got worse and we had to wait all day."

Holidaymakers complained of "chaotic scenes" with a lack of information and very little food provided for those who did not book meals in advance for the flight.

Another passenger said: "The whole thing has turned into a holiday hell. The trouble was that we were not kept informed. We just couldn't get information."

No-one from Thomson Holidays was available for comment last night.