Thanks, Konkordski !
Greek newspaper Kathimerini reports this morning as follows.
Re Alexandair : no mention of bureaucratic glitches or paperwork, or that all airlines are now subject to checks by Greek CAA.
Also, no info re airline, fleet, background to recent engine fire + emergency landing, etc. All a great unknown - and a great number of inconvenienced and worried pax.
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Kathimerini : 22nd August 2005
Three aircraft suffer glitches
Three aircraft, operated by different Greek companies, were grounded over the weekend due to technical problems.
On Saturday, Greek aviation officials banned charter firm Alexandair from sending a plane to France to collect passengers bound for Crete but gave no reason for their decision, according to Agence France-Presse. The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 had been due to leave Rennes for Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport before flying to Iraklion. Passengers were reassigned to other aircraft.
The 126 passengers aboard yesterday’s Olympic Airlines Flight 336 were delayed for several hours in Larnaca as the Boeing 737 due to take them to Thessaloniki underwent repairs for a technical problem. The aircraft eventually took off safely. Unconfirmed sources referred to a problem with the aircraft’s air-conditioning system.
Yesterday’s Aegean Airlines Flight 277 for Athens from Chios was obliged to turn back shortly after takeoff when an electrical problem stirred fears of an engine malfunction. It landed on Chios safely and the 100 passengers were transferred to another craft. The cause of the fault was not clear yesterday.
It gets worse !
Following post from HolidayWatch this morning.
Alexandair don\'t even appear to have proper representation at their home airport of Heraklion !
To protect the reputations of all those great airlines out there, low-cost and classic, and for the good of that \'overseas holidays\' business on which so many airlines depend, such cowboys need to be controlled.
Again, does anyone have info on background/fleet/track record of Alexandair, pls ?
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MikeN
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 1
Re: Alexandair
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ARRRGGH!!!!! What a nightmare!
We booked a hoilday through Complete Travel Solutions to Sissi, Crete. Self catering for a week from 5th-12th August. The holiday was really great (apart from a 2 hour delay to the outbound flight). It was the getting home that was a disaster.
We were delayed more than 45 hours at Heraklion waiting for our flight home! The only contact we had to know what was going to was from me having to use my mobile phone to phone Complete Travel Solutions in the UK and ask for updates on what was going on. We didn\'t hear or see a Sunstar/Complete Travel Solutions/Indigo Holidays/Alexandair rep or member of staff until Sunday mid-morning.
Our return flight on ALEXANDAIR was scheduled for Friday 12th August 2005 at 18:50. We\'d arrived at Heraklion airport at about 2:30pm, just to be safe (also because the taxi driver drove at about 150kmph getting us there in half the time we thought it\'d take).
To cut a long long story short, the Gatwick flight was delayed until Monday 15th August about 03:45am!!!!! There was a return flight to Manchester at 17:10pm on Sunday 14th August, and we demanded to be put on that, as we needed to get back home and had already been delayed for more than 45 hours !!! With some begging from the Sunstar rep Suzy (who was really helpful once she turned up on Sunday) two other passengers due to fly to Gatwick & my girlfriend and I managed to board the Manchester flight. This was the plane that had been grounded in Italy earlier in the week and subsequently repaired. People were not happy about getting on this plane, especially after all of us had heard about the Helios plane crash earlier in the day. The stewardesses looked worried and the pilot sounded really nervous when he was making announcements over the plane\'s tanoy.
When we were in the air, the pilot announced that the plane was now going to land at Manchester, then go on to Gatwick - great news for us, but our luggage had Manchester labels on it (and for other people stuck at Heraklion who could have been on this plane - I\'d say the plane was at least 50% empty). At Manchester, the luggage was unloaded and we were told to look out of the window, and if we saw our cases coming off the plane, knock on the window and the baggage handlers would throw them back on (I\'m not making this up!). We did\'nt see our luggage - it wasn\'t there.
Anyway, there were only a handful of Manchester passengers due to start their holidays (who\'d been delayed for 3 days) boarding the plane.
We got to Gatwick at about 10.30pm, and to top it all off, our luggage was missing. We\'d heard from the stewardesses that it was either still in Heraklion or possibly in Brussels!!!
We reported lost buggage reports with the Servisair Baggage Facilities in Gatwick before we left the airport. It has now been over a week and we still haven\'t got our bags back! Thanks, Alexandair...
Just to add, Alexandair did put us all up in a \'hotel\' in Heraklion, and provided meals, but we only got a free 2 minute phone call each, after that we\'d have to pay. EU Air Passenger Regulations state that the airline must provide its passengers with communication facilities if they have been delayed for more than 5 hours (we were delayed for 7 hours even before we were taken to the hotel on Friday late at night). During the period we were in the hotel, there was no contact or communication with any reps or staff or anyone from Alexandair, Complete Travel Solutions, Indigo Holidays or Sunstar (the only contact we had was from phoning Complete Travel Solutions in the UK on our moobile, and them returning phone calls about 3 times over this period. They were none the wiser about the situation, and told us the best thing to do would be to stay at the hotel and wait).
It was only when we all decided to go back to the airport on Sunday morning (we were told we had to leave the hotel by midday Sunday anyway) that a Sunstar rep and Alexandair staff turned up. We had to go an d complain to the Heraklion Civil Aviation Authority in their office in the airport. Apparently they knew the situation with Alexandair and had threatened them with fines if they did not look after their passengers.
my girlfriend and I only had about 2 Euros of money left on us, and so on Saturday 13th August in the morning we and a load of other stranded Gatwick and Manchester Alexandair passengers had to resort to going down to the British Consulate in Heraklion (to see if they could help get us back to the UK!), which was closed all weekend anyway, so no joy there!.
According to EU Air Passenger Rights - if an airline delays you for more than 5 hours, you are entitled to your return flight airfare refunded, and free transport to your originating destination. We didn\'t have travel insurance, but as far as I am concerned, this should not affect it, as by law, the airline have to refund the money to us.
We could not check in for our return flight on Friday as there was no check in desk to go to marked on the departure board at any point (the flight details just dissappeared off the departure board and nothing more was said until about 11.30pm Friday 12th August when an announcement was made over the tanoy at the airport saying that all AXN 163 Gatwick passengers should go to the Information desk, a taxi driver was there to take us all to the Astoreon Hotel in Heraklion. There were no reps or any airline staff, just this taxi driver who \'was friends with someone who works for Alexandair\') and no staff at the Alexandair offices all weekend until Sunday approximately 11:00am.
We have an officially stamped letter from the Heraklion Civil Aviation Authority stating the delay on the AXN 163 Alexandair flight to Gatwick, and a copy of the facsimile from Alexandair stating that passengers should be kept at their accommodation until Sunday 14th August 12 midday (dated Saturday 13th August 2005).
Does anybody know our legal standing on this situation (not having insurance but requesting a refund from the airline as they have broken EU air passenger rights)?
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Last edited by MikeN : Today at 10:42 AM.