Stranded vacationers

“The airline completely let us down”

The Innsbruck restaurateur couple Heinz and Gerda Seiler present some of the correspondence they had with Condor GmbH for their Tenerife vacation.

(Bild: Birbaumer Christof)

After three days of uncertainty, the stranded vacationers from Tenerife finally returned home on Monday night. As reported, they were stuck on the island without a flight home. The airline Condor denies all responsibility.

As reported, the Innsbruck restaurateur couple Heinz and Gerda Seiler arrived home safely in the early hours of Monday morning after their three-day odyssey at Tenerife South Airport. However, the stale aftertaste of the disastrous return journey will probably always remain in the memories of the two life-affirming senior citizens.

"I have always booked and paid for our annual vacations directly on the Condor platform for a number of years. I also communicate via this platform in the event of complaints. Although I - like more than 200 other frustrated passengers - did not receive any information via this platform for three days," Heinz Seiler describes in an interview with the "Krone". He also presents the booking confirmations and further correspondence with Condor Flugdienst GmbH.

Gerda Seiler with a scribbled note for a hotel, which she was reluctantly given at the airport.

(Bild: Birbaumer Christof)

Waiting without knowing what would happen.

(Bild: Gerda Seiler)

Condor refers to subsidiary airline
The communications department of the airline, which is based in Neu-Isenburg, Germany, naturally took notice of the "Krone" article and immediately sent a letter denying any responsibility for the return flight chaos. According to Condor, there was no Condor flight between Munich and Tenerife on offer last Friday (October 25).

Condor GmbH is therefore blaming its Estonian subsidiary or sister company - the Marabu airline - which only landed in Tenerife South on Sunday to finally bring the vacationers home at night.

Passengers checked in and out four times
Günter Rettenbacher from Steyr in Upper Austria also had the same experience as the couple from Innsbruck: "It was not obvious to me that Condor was using the Marabu airline, because I also only communicated with Condor GmbH about my vacation," says the engineer from Upper Austria.

The worst thing about the whole disaster, which involved checking in and out of the airport a total of four times between October 25 and 27, was also for him that there was no information at all for the unsettled passengers - and that for three full (in this case very long) days.