200 vacationers affected

“Trapped” in the vacation paradise for three days

Tenerife South International Airport (Sur) unintentionally became a waiting room for hundreds of vacationers for days on end.

(Bild: zVg)

200 Tenerife vacationers have been waiting without information since Friday for their flight home, which has been cancelled several times so far. They were left out in the rain by both the airline and the airport staff.

After three relaxing weeks on vacation in Tenerife, Heinrich and Gerda Seiler from Innsbruck were looking forward to returning home on Friday. But that did not happen. Instead, they were stuck on the Canary Island together with around 200 Austrian and German holidaymakers without any information from the airline Condor.

Heinrich and Gerda Seiler

(Bild: Familie Seiler)

To the great displeasure of the well-known restaurateur couple Seiler, for whom the autumn vacation came to an unplanned end, as Gerda Seiler explained in a telephone conversation with the "Krone": "We spent three wonderful and relaxing weeks in Adeje with its wonderful beaches. We were a little sad that last Friday was the day we had to go home. But the fact that we have been left out in the cold by the airline responsible since then is really beyond belief."

Several wasted procedures at the airport
In the early evening of October 25, after several hours of waiting after checking in at the airport, the flight was suddenly canceled without any reason being given.

It is sad that the people waiting at the airport were not offered the slightest help.

Urlauberin Gerda Seiler aus Innsbruck

While dozens of other holidaymakers, many of them elderly people and families with small children, remained at the airport, the Seiler couple were picked up and taken back to a hotel in Adeje that they had previously booked by cell phone. There they were woken up at the crack of dawn on Saturday by a text message. The message informed the couple that their flight to Munich was leaving at 10am.

The flights home for around 200 holidaymakers were canceled several times without any information.

(Bild: Fam. Seiler, Krone KREATIV)

They drove to the airport again, but four hours later the passengers were again asked to check out - again no flight home. Heinrich and Gerda Seiler and countless other holidaymakers were just about to leave the airport building when an employee ran up to them excitedly and shouted that they should check in again immediately, as a plane would be arriving for them after all.

After hours of waiting, shortly before midnight the bad news came again: flight canceled again. While the Seilers moved back into their emergency accommodation with their luggage, many others had to sleep at the airport again.

Silence from the airline responsible
On Sunday, even the otherwise extremely resilient Innsbruck restaurateur sounded a little nervous: "We have to check in again at 3 pm, as the return flight is due to take place at 5.30 pm. But I don't know if I can trust this statement."

Our return flight is scheduled for 5.30 pm. But I don't know if I can still trust this statement.

Urlauberin Gerda Seiler

The worst thing in this situation was that they did not get an answer from Condor (even after repeated requests), let alone a solution to this disaster, nor did the staff at Tenerife Sur Airport prove to be cooperative over the past few long days. Also, this unwanted "vacation extension" continues to hit the pockets of everyone affected.

On Sunday evening, it looked as if the stranded Tenerife vacationers were going to get their long-awaited flight home after all. We will report back.