A COUPLE has shared how their romantic getaway turned into a nightmare after their Wizz Air flight was diverted to a different airport 400 miles away.
Ben Hall, 42, who was looking forward to a short break in Dubrovnik, Croatia with his wife said their getaway was ruined after the airline diverted their flight to Zagreb and “abandoned” them.
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Ben, from Sheffield, said the pair, alongside other stranded passengers, were left to their own devices and were forced to spend the night at the airport.
After a three-hour delay from Luton, the flight was rerouted to the country’s capital- an 8-hour drive from Dubrovnik.
Despite being promised they would be transferred to their destination by bus, about 100 passengers of the flight were left stranded.
Ben told MailOnline: “It started badly at Luton and just got worse.
“First we were told the flight was delayed by three hours as the plane had no captain or cabin crew so had to get staff on their day off to travel to Luton to work on the plane.
“Many people were set to miss bookings for transfers and car hire… so that was bad enough.
“But when we finally set off it was about 20 minutes before our scheduled landing, the pilot came on over the speaker saying that due to high winds we were unable to land and were making our way to Split to land there instead.
“Five minutes later he came back on the speaker saying that Split airport was closed therefore we could not use the runway. Nobody knew what on earth was happening.
“Then we started to descend, and the pilot came back on the speaker and said we were descending to Zagreb airport and that staff would arrange coaches to take us to Dubrovnik.
“As soon as we landed people started to check their phones and it’s 400 miles from Zagreb to Dubrovnik with an estimated coach journey of at least 8 hours!
“The cabin crew were challenged on this and said it was about 4 hours and that coaches would be waiting for us as soon as we got into the main airport. It was 11pm by this point.”
Ben said that after waiting for hours he received an apology email from Wizz air saying they will be “unable to sort a bus out” for them.
He said that the airport was closed while hotels in Zagreb were full and no hire car companies were open at that time.
He continued: “Taxis quoted 1000 euros to take people, saying it was an 800-mile round trip for them.
“There were people falling asleep in their wheelchairs, newborn babies crying and parents saying they had no sterilised bottles left. People were sleeping on the floor everywhere.”
Wizz Air has been contacted for comment.
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