Sunwing passengers delayed in Cuba for almost 20 hours
Posted January 15, 2014 9:32 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Almost 200 weary travellers are finally back on Canadian soil after being stranded in a Cuban airport for hours without any food or water.
“They just let us rot in a Cuban airport with no water eventually in the end, no food, in heat with babies that have fevers. Kids are walking around crying,” Janina Gibson, a passenger on Flight 683, told CityNews.
Dino Kanelopolous, another passenger, said he arrived at the airport in Varadero around 6:30 p.m. for the flight, which was scheduled to depart at 9 p.m.
“The information was that there were technically difficulties with one of the planes,” he explained. “They made arrangements to get another flight out. We got that information right around midnight.”
One Sunwing passenger posted somewhat alarming messages about her plight.
Louise Martinheira who goes by @252MOVE tweeted on Tuesday, “#HELP us please…. 190 of us stuck in Cuba & #Sunwing is giving us no answers. Flight 683….without water even….sick people.”
She also posted, “Still stuck in Cuba. Flight 683. We requested Canadian embassy. They won’t get them. I have video footage. 190 passengers….hard to text…”
Around 6 a.m. passengers were told they were not going home yet and they were put on a bus and taken back to their hotels.
Martinheira later tweeted, “No Sunwing rep yet. They sent us to hotel for 4 hours & now going back to airport to wait some more…..at least we are fed now.”
After about twenty hours and four delays later passengers were allowed to board their flight home.
Many passengers said the most frustrating part of the entire ordeal was the lack of information from the airline.
Sunwing Vacations wasn’t immediately available for comment.
