A tourist has described his holiday ‘nightmare’ with British Airways and has vowed never to fly with the airline again.
Geoff Lye’s trip from London to Athens, which should have taken around four hours, ended up taking 33 hours after two flights were cancelled – while another caught fire after take-off.
He was due to fly from London Heathrow last Tuesday at 1.15pm only for the service to be cancelled due to a faulty warning light in the cockpit.
Another flight due to leave for Athens at 5pm was also cancelled due to the delay from the first flight meaning ‘cabin crew would exceed their working hours’.
Pensioner Geoff Lye had to board four separate planes – including one that caught fire – during a ‘nightmare’ trip from London to Athens with British Airways
Mr Lye, who was travelling with his partner, said the pilot told passengers it was ‘most embarrassing PA announcement I have had to make’ after they had initially been kept on the plane for an hour for ‘security reasons’.
After being given hotel vouchers to stay the night, he returned the next day and boarded his third plane, only for an engine to catch fire following ‘six loud bangs’.
Mr Lye, a Cambridge graduate, told the Evening Standard: ‘We just took off and there was a bang and it was the engine next to me. There was this huge noise and a judder, and then there were about six more bangs. It was one bang after another.
‘I’m an atheist but even I was praying. Our hearts were racing. Passengers behind me said they could see flames kicking out from the engine.
‘The plane got to about 6,000ft and just levelled out and then all of a sudden just silence as they shut down the right engine. The captain then came on and said, “Everything is under control and we have had to shut the engine down, but I’m sorry, we are going back to Heathrow”.’
He added the plane landed ‘perfectly safely’ and that passengers were ‘delighted to be alive’.
Mr Lye and his partner finally left for Greece later that evening and arrived in Athens early Thursday morning.
The pensioner said the ordeal ‘made him embarrassed to be British’ and said he would no longer use BA after 40 years of flying with them as ‘their most loyal passenger’.
The airline confirmed four separate planes were used for the flight over two days and had apologised to customers.