It’s not unusual to see aircraft divert due to inclement weather, causing passengers to arrive at their destination late. However, a recent Condor flight to Greece ended up landing at five airports over the course of 32 hours, only for the plane and passengers to end up exactly where they started.
Continue reading: Condor A320 Operates 32-Hour Journey To Nowhere, With Five Landings
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Feel free to have this playing in the background while reading it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg
Condor is an incompetent airline that should have long been shut down. This story is nothing compared to the time where they landed in Greenland en route to Las Vegas and abandoned the basic needs of many, if not most or all, of the passengers. Basically said in so many words “deal with it”. They flew a different aircraft in many hours later with a different configuration, and their “customer service rep” who flew on the flight gave the appearance that he was completely prepared to abandon passengers in Greenland that it had violated its EU rights and obligations for. Because no one wanted to be abandoned, everyone just agreed to be piled in like cattle and do what we could.
As best I know, no one at Condor was ever held civilly or criminally liable for what transpired.
This never made it into the news.
How did the passengers finally end up in Heraklion?? I know Condor threw in the towel, but I'm sure the passengers did not give up on their plans for Heraklion
Thank you Petros for reminding me of the days before the woke generation killed comedy.
Seemingly Condor know how to ‘entertain’ their passengers by giving them the runaround!
As it likely never happened - or can you share the details as I can only find their flight to FRA SEA diverted to KEF and Westjet to LHR YYZ diverted to Greenland several years ago.
There are two other airports in Crete, why didn't they try those?
And why would they make passengers abandon their checked luggage if they decided to stay in Greece instead of turning back??
Terrible handling of this.
Maybe I'm just thinking outside the box here, but after failing for the 2nd time why not go back to Athens instead of Thessaloniki and just put the passengers on a ferry to Heraklion? Athens has a direct ferry connection, and as far as I can tell the last one leaves at 22:00. Plenty of time to move passengers and luggage to the port, especially since it was only 18:00 when they arrived at Thessaloniki. I can't imagine the weather was also so terrible that the ferries weren't even running either.
„During that entire long day on the plane, passengers were only offered a single cup of water, and not anything else to eat or drink“
Pretty poor what Condor Crew did. As a passenger, i would’ve just bought everything from „buy onboard“ and would’ve Condor reimburse it to me later…
Nothing you can buy if the FAs won't open the fridge at the back of the plane.
Out of curiosity: how did other airlines cope with the situation? Can somebody with a premium subscription check flightradar for 24may?
It gets even weirder. I have no idea what those condor guys were thinking. Planes were landing and taking off all morning/noon. Just watched the replay from 10AM to 12PM, and Ryanair planes landed a few minutes before the condor plane, and multiple planes landed while the Condor plane was circling over HER lol. All while planes took off like normal from the airport.
@Icarus I do not perform free labor, voluntarily or otherwise, for those who make salacious false accusations without irrefutable proof as you have here. No idea why you started your response with an accusation instead of a question, but for me it speaks volumes about your personal character.
All you had to do is not start with an accusation, but in light of that, what I will tell you is that this flight absolutely happened, and your research appears to be insufficient.
All in all, this is an opinion section, where for example my viewpoint on Condor’s performance and actions is shared as an opinion, and you are entitled to have your viewpoints and opinions as well.
I'm curious if other planes were landing that day. Seems odd that they even left ZRH given the conditions. Clearly other aircraft were getting in or they would not repeatedly try. Bad luck happens during slot but still, three times?
Was in Crete that day. Thankfully got in on Condor from FRA in the early morning. I was on flight radar seeing tons of diversions, and it’s unfortunate for all.
Flights to Madeira, also quite often have many weather diversions. I vaguely remember a Condor? Jet that diverted to PXO, due to bad weather at FNC. Then after a few hours, they re-tried to land at FNC. With 2 go-arounds. They then diverted to TFS, stayed overnight. Then tied again the next day to land at FNC, but to no avail, as the winds were 'out-of-limits'. They finally flew the plane to Faro; unloaded the passengers; then flew the plane back to the origin airport. (Passengers leaving FNC had to endure an extra unplanned 4-5 days, stuck in FNC.)
Feel free to have this playing in the background while reading it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg
Thank you Petros for reminding me of the days before the woke generation killed comedy.
Seemingly Condor know how to ‘entertain’ their passengers by giving them the runaround!
Condor is an incompetent airline that should have long been shut down. This story is nothing compared to the time where they landed in Greenland en route to Las Vegas and abandoned the basic needs of many, if not most or all, of the passengers. Basically said in so many words “deal with it”. They flew a different aircraft in many hours later with a different configuration, and their “customer service rep” who flew on the flight gave the appearance that he was completely prepared to abandon passengers in Greenland that it had violated its EU rights and obligations for. Because no one wanted to be abandoned, everyone just agreed to be piled in like cattle and do what we could.
As best I know, no one at Condor was ever held civilly or criminally liable for what transpired.
This never made it into the news.
As it likely never happened - or can you share the details as I can only find their flight to FRA SEA diverted to KEF and Westjet to LHR YYZ diverted to Greenland several years ago.
@Icarus I do not perform free labor, voluntarily or otherwise, for those who make salacious false accusations without irrefutable proof as you have here. No idea why you started your response with an accusation instead of a question, but for me it speaks volumes about your personal character.
All you had to do is not start with an accusation, but in light of that, what I will tell you is that this flight absolutely happened, and your research appears to be insufficient.
All in all, this is an opinion section, where for example my viewpoint on Condor’s performance and actions is shared as an opinion, and you are entitled to have your viewpoints and opinions as well.
How did the passengers finally end up in Heraklion?? I know Condor threw in the towel, but I'm sure the passengers did not give up on their plans for Heraklion
There are two other airports in Crete, why didn't they try those?
And why would they make passengers abandon their checked luggage if they decided to stay in Greece instead of turning back??
Terrible handling of this.
Maybe I'm just thinking outside the box here, but after failing for the 2nd time why not go back to Athens instead of Thessaloniki and just put the passengers on a ferry to Heraklion? Athens has a direct ferry connection, and as far as I can tell the last one leaves at 22:00. Plenty of time to move passengers and luggage to the port, especially since it was only 18:00 when they arrived at Thessaloniki. I can't imagine the weather was also so terrible that the ferries weren't even running either.
„During that entire long day on the plane, passengers were only offered a single cup of water, and not anything else to eat or drink“
Pretty poor what Condor Crew did. As a passenger, i would’ve just bought everything from „buy onboard“ and would’ve Condor reimburse it to me later…
Out of curiosity: how did other airlines cope with the situation? Can somebody with a premium subscription check flightradar for 24may?
It gets even weirder. I have no idea what those condor guys were thinking. Planes were landing and taking off all morning/noon. Just watched the replay from 10AM to 12PM, and Ryanair planes landed a few minutes before the condor plane, and multiple planes landed while the Condor plane was circling over HER lol. All while planes took off like normal from the airport.
how many miles do the pax get here?
I'm curious if other planes were landing that day. Seems odd that they even left ZRH given the conditions. Clearly other aircraft were getting in or they would not repeatedly try. Bad luck happens during slot but still, three times?
Was in Crete that day. Thankfully got in on Condor from FRA in the early morning. I was on flight radar seeing tons of diversions, and it’s unfortunate for all.
Flights to Madeira, also quite often have many weather diversions. I vaguely remember a Condor? Jet that diverted to PXO, due to bad weather at FNC. Then after a few hours, they re-tried to land at FNC. With 2 go-arounds. They then diverted to TFS, stayed overnight. Then tied again the next day to land at FNC, but to no avail, as the winds were 'out-of-limits'. They finally flew the plane to Faro; unloaded the passengers; then flew the plane back to the origin airport. (Passengers leaving FNC had to endure an extra unplanned 4-5 days, stuck in FNC.)
It's a low cost/low quality airline. You get what you (didn't) pay for.