A group of friends will have to wait more than 24 hours at Congonhas airport, south of São Paulo, to return home. Their flight, scheduled for Wednesday (10) at 7 p.m., was canceled after the passage of the extratropical cyclone.
They only managed to be reassigned to a new flight scheduled to take off this Thursday (11) at 10 p.m., 27 hours later than initially planned. The friends went to São Paulo to do some end-of-year shopping in the Brás area and to Rua 25 de Março to resell in Recife. They have 23 kilos of luggage containing goods they purchased.
“The worst thing is not that the flight is canceled because of a climatic problem, it happens and we must understand. The worst is the lack of information and the lack of respect towards the passengers,” says Amanda Maria Ferreira da Silva, 28 years old.
She says the trip was postponed several times on Wednesday evening until Azul airline informed her that the flight would depart at 11 p.m. The passengers boarded and the plane circled the runway, but after an hour of waiting, the pilot reported that it would not be possible to take off.
“Even after the takeoff was canceled, we still spent more than an hour waiting inside the plane. The treatment was very disrespectful, they didn’t give any information,” says Amanda.
As shown in Leafflight cancellations at Congonhas Airport reached 291 until 3:30 p.m. this Thursday (11), combined with the two days of disruption caused by the cyclone.
“I don’t blame the company for canceling the flight, because it was an unexpected and atypical situation. But they can’t treat passengers that way,” says the saleswoman.
She says the company informed them they would not be eligible for a hotel voucher and only paid for a meal voucher. “They gave us R$20 for breakfast. That’s the price of water here at the airport.”
She and her two friends were sleeping in the waiting room.
In a note, Azul informed that it provides assistance to affected customers as provided for in the Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency) regulations. “Azul regrets any inconvenience and emphasizes that such measures are necessary to ensure the security of its operations, a core value for the company.”
It also indicated that “for the sake of liberality”, it had decided to make its rescheduling policy more flexible in order to minimize the impacts on passengers. “Customers whose tickets were issued for December 11 and 12 will be able to change their trip free of charge until December 18 or, if they choose to cancel the flight, keep the full credit of the amount paid to use it on another occasion, within one year from the date of ticket issue.”
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