Wizz Air Passengers Stranded in Marrakech After Denied Boarding to Rome

"We had plane tickets and, when we presented ourselves at the check-in counter, the people there informed us that we might not be able to board this flight. So we waited an hour and a half with the other rejected passengers. There was no one from Wizz Air at the check-in counter," Alan Smith* told the Mirror, specifying that the people in charge of check-in weren’t even employees of the company. He had bought his ticket for over €400 (£337) for the flights. According to him, the affected passengers had to insist with the check-in agents to be able to take a photo of their plane tickets without assigned seats.

Faced with the impossibility of going to Rome, Alan and his wife lost a night at the hotel and had to book accommodation in Marrakech. The next day, the couple took a British Airways flight to the UK, after having to cancel their flight to Italy. "In total, it cost us more than 1,500 euros," said Alan, for whom the Wizz Air experience is "disappointing". "Wizz Air never spontaneously contacted us to acknowledge the boarding denial or to apologize," he added. The couple filed a compensation claim and received a response from the airline. "According to the latest news, Wizz Air’s customer service rejected our claim, as we are unable to provide the boarding denial form that was never given to us," he explained.

Contacted by the British media about the customer’s claims, the company explained that the problem resulted from an administrative error. The team on site had not provided the required form to process the compensation. Consequently, the case was not properly recorded in Wizz Air’s system. Hence, the impossibility for customer service agents to process a refund.

Alan took this situation badly. He makes a radical decision: "We will never fly with this company again."

*Name changed