Tours: Hassle for a flight from Marrakech

With 130 passengers on board, the plane took off from Marrakech airport at 6:30 am and arrived in Tours a little after 9 am. But due to the fog, it could not land. "We arrived in Tours around 9:05 am as planned. At that time, the pilot, who was really great, announced to us over the microphone that he couldn’t land. He made two attempts, commenting each time on what he was doing," says Kambiz, a passenger and resident of Chanceaux-sur-Choisille.

After these two attempts, the pilot informed the passengers "that we had an hour of fuel left. We circled around waiting for the weather to improve," adds Kambiz. Finally, the plane was diverted to Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) where it landed without difficulty around 11 am. But the passengers’ ordeal was not over. They were surprised to learn that they could not disembark because the Rennes airport does not have customs service.

"We stayed on board for thirty minutes. And then we were escorted to a confined part of the airport. We couldn’t go out because we hadn’t gone through customs. They gave us a 33cl bottle of water and that’s all. We waited at least two hours. We hadn’t eaten since 3 am, there were two young children. It was complicated for everyone," details the same passenger.

A few minutes later, the passengers boarded again for Tours. "The pilot said that if he couldn’t land in Tours, we would go to Paris-Beauvais airport to go through customs and come back by train..." he continues. But "with great difficulty," the plane was finally able to land in Tours at 1:40 pm, while the scheduled arrival time was 9:25 am. This is the third flight diverted since autumn. "It’s the season, these are weather hazards. There was too much fog," says Mickaël Toma, director of Tours airport.