They put the family on the wrong plane

A British family with a severely disabled girl is accusing Rainier of “abandoning” them, after the special assistance bus at Spain’s Alicante airport took them to the wrong plane – causing them to miss their flight home. Daniel Luz, 47, and his three children were due to fly from Alicante to Bournemouth, but the bus, which is operated by the port, brought them to another company’s plane. According to him, the crew ignored him, even when he pleaded that it was the wrong airline.

“When I asked if they could help us get to Bournemouth from Stansted, they laughed it off,” said Laws. “We were abandoned at Stansted. We were told that Ryanair believed it had nothing to do with them, and that we had to organize our own way home. We were the most vulnerable people on the flight.”

By the time the family was brought back to the terminal, the Rainier flight to Bournemouth had already taken off. Luz said that they were directed to the company’s help desk and left to sit on the floor for two hours, before they were told that they could be transferred to a flight that would land at an airport 200 km away from the destination they were supposed to arrive at. Even after they landed there, according to him, they waited another hour in front of Rainier personnel, and then they were told to take care of the rest of the journey on their own.

Luz, a former teacher who now takes full-time care of his eldest daughter who suffers from a brain injury, said that the children aged 10, 14 and 16 cried because they had not eaten for hours since breakfast. The original flight from Alicante to Bournemouth took off, but the family didn’t get home until 9.30pm, after a train to London, tube delays and another train to the seaside town.

The way home cost Luz 167 pounds (about NIS 790) in train tickets alone. He demands a full refund for the flight he didn’t cost and compensation for the experience, the trains and the food. “I don’t understand why there is no regulation that requires them to take responsibility,” he said.

Marineair stated that the special assistance services in Alicante, as in any airport, are provided by the airport but financed by Rainair. “We regret that Alicante Airport’s special assistance provider, Alyzia, did not bring these passengers onto the plane before the flight from Alicante to Bournemouth took off on July 31,” a company spokesperson said. He said following Alyzia’s mistake, Rainier transferred the family free of charge to the next available flight from Alicante to Stansted, which took off later that day, and was working with Alicante airport to make sure it didn’t happen again.