150 Israelis won a Mifal HaPayis lottery prize to Barcelona with Vueling Airlines. While there is no mention by the group if they enjoyed their stay, the report does mention the flight home, which was unforgettable, but not exactly in the confines of ‘enjoyable’.
As the plane was preparing for takeoff for the flight back to Tel Aviv, with engines already running, some of the passengers saw their luggage was taken off the plane. They became agitated and began shouting “our luggage was taken off” while running towards flight attendants. The situation became unruly and police were summoned leading to the detention or arrest of four of the passengers.
According to the Maariv report, the flight crew tried explaining “there is no choice” regarding the removal of luggage since something was found to be problematic and the captain was not willing to take off until the questionable luggage was removed. No explanation was given. The four were taken off the plane by local police while the others were compelled to remain on board. “They finally let us off the plane after an hour and a half” one passenger is quoted as saying. They group waited for an additional 90 minutes in the terminal and they were then instructed to board the flight again. This time, there was another flight crew.
When they arrived in Israel they were shocked to learn there were only 20 suitcases instead of 200. The remainder was unloaded in Barcelona. The report points out that among the passengers was Ariela Ettinger, known in Israel as the voice of the lottery for her radio commercials in which she phones winners and tells them of their good fortune.
Lottery officials responding to the report issued the following statement: The flight crew decided that for security reasons they would remove a number of suitcases. A number of the passengers became agitated and the airline decided to have them detained and at the end, they took off for Israel following a delay of a number of hours.
No explanation is given as to what exactly the security issue was and why it included most of the suitcases on the flight.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
why is this a news article? and who cares?
what i meant to say was,,,, why is this newsworthy. People go on flights every day of the year and many get cancelled or rerouted due to inclimate weather or other delays. Why would you expect that an airline is going to compensate you for pain and suffering. ?