A passenger who was on board a flight forced to turn back after a bird strike has hit out at the airline after she says 10 elderly people spent the night in an airport.
Anita Carville, 55, was among passengers aboard the easyJet Alicante to Belfast flight on Friday night.
It was forced to return to Alicante after a bird strike caused a “technical issue”.
Mrs Carville claimed that communication from the airline was “poor” and resulted in her travelling companions, from Lurgan, having to sleep overnight in the airport.
She said they weren’t told until close to 2am to get accommodation, and had to be back at the airport for 8am the night morning.
She told Belfast Live: “I’m 55. My mum’s 81. I go on holiday with them to look after them. They’re all pensioners and one of them is disabled.
“Through word of mouth we heard that disabled people, pensioners and people with children were being put in accommodation.
“At about 1.50am we were told we’d to get our own accommodation and they’d pay it back.
“We’d to be back at 8am, so by the time I’d get them packed up and away there was no time.
“There was no way I could book a hotel. If they’d given us more time we could have sorted something.
“They’d to sit there all night. When they said in their statement that people got sorted with accommodation it’s just not true.
“The communication is just terrible. I normally wouldn’t complain but it wasn’t good enough.”
An easyJet spokesman said: "Whilst we were able to secure rooms in Alicante for the majority of passengers delayed overnight, due to limited availability in the area we also informed customers they could source their own accommodation and we would reimburse them.
"We understand that some passengers remained in the airport and they will also be reimbursed for any expenses incurred as a result of the delay.
"The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is our highest priority and whilst this was outside of our control we would like to apologise to passengers for the inconvenience and thank them for their patience and understanding."
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