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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Katie Weston

Wizz Air passenger shouts 'call the police' at airline staff as his flight is axed

A Wizz Air passenger shouted "call the police" at airline staff after his flight home was scrapped.

Customers travelling from London's Gatwick Airport to Sicily on Monday were told at the gate their journey had been axed and to rebook online.

Footage shows one man lashing out at airline staff, yelling that he "wants to go home" and "no one wants to help".

He shouts in Italian: "We need help, and nobody wants to help us. They don't give a f***. We are not playing games."

The passenger goes on to say: "I want to go home. I I have things to do at home. I have family at home.

"We need support, we need help, call the police. Why don't the police come and help us? We have no help. Disgusting."

The man yells that he "wants to go home" and "nobody wants to help us" (Twitter)
Footage showed the man, left, lashing out at the airline (Twitter)

Emma and Kevin Wood, both 51 from Hampshire, had also planned to fly to Sicily with the airline on June 6.

Mr Wood said there had been “no help at all” from the airline, with Mrs Wood adding: “They just said basically said try and rebook it online or on their website.”

Meanwhile, Wizz Air's boss yesterday admitted the price of a plane ticket might jump by close to 10% this summer as European travellers try to get away after two years of heavy travel restrictions.

Jozsef Varadi said that prices have already climbed in relative terms and that they will continue to do so between July and September.

Customers travelling from Gatwick Airport to Sicily were told at the gate their journey had been axed (Twitter)

The airline also warned that recent disruption at airports will probably lead to the airline making an operating loss in the first quarter of its financial year. This will likely have a knock on effect on customers.

“Shortages of staff in air traffic control, security and other parts of the supply chain are impacting airlines, our employees and our customers directly,” Mr Varadi said.

“We see strong consumer demand for summer, but expect an operating loss for the first quarter of F23.

“The airline industry remains exposed to externalities such as air traffic control disruption and continuing operational issues within the airports sector, adding to a volatile macro environment.

Budget airlines such as Wizz Air are having a difficult time at the moment, despite a recent spike in demand (file photo) (Getty Images)

“As a result, at this point, we are not providing further financial guidance for the year.”

Budget airlines such as Wizz Air are having a difficult time at the moment, despite a recent spike in demand.

The number of passengers carried by the company more than doubled from 10.2 million to 27.1 million in the year to the end of March.

Revenue rose 125% to 1.7 billion euros (£1.5 billion), while pre-tax loss rose from 567 million euros to 642 million (£482 million to £546 million).

Lengthy queues at Manchester Airport on Thursday morning (ZENPIX LTD)

A spokeswoman for Wizz Air said: "We are so sorry that too many of our passengers are being subjected to current delays and, in some cases, cancellations.

"Across the travel industry Wizz Air and every airline is doing as much as we all can to help as many passengers as possible reach their destinations in time and with minimal delay.

"However, amongst other issues causing operational instability throughout the travel industry, there is a widespread shortage in staff, in particular within air traffic control, ground operations and baggage handling, security and across airports."

She added: "Whilst every cancellation is regrettable, the vast majority of our flights are operating as planned, with more than 100,000 passengers reaching their destinations each day.

"We’d like to offer our sincere apologies again to those customers whose travel plans have been affected as we do understand how disappointed they are, particularly when so many people want and deserve to travel the world again.

"We are trying everything we can to offer them a range of options so that they can travel including alternative flights with Wizz Air, a full refund or 120% in airline credit (both of which we aim to process within a week)."

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