The passengers rebel. The cancellation of the Toulouse-Marrakech flight, on the night of Wednesday July 13 to Thursday July 14, fueled the anger of passengers at Blagnac airport (Haute-Garonne), reports The Midi Dispatch. Annoyed, and somewhat helpless, the passengers simply grabbed the aircraft.
The newspaper says the flight should have taken off at 9:30 p.m. But due to a delay, initially, passengers had to wait in the boarding area… not air-conditioned. A situation that had become unbearable with the scorching temperatures that lasted for hours… until the flight was cancelled.
“A few freaked out. (…) Some passengers began to force boarding and climbed on the plane,” a passenger told La Dépêche. And once inside the aircraft, some passengers simply refused to get out. “Police surrounded the aircraft,” said a traveler. According to the director of airport operations, quoted by the newspaper, no one was able to access the cockpit.
“They really started to get annoyed”
“They had nothing to drink or eat. Some had to wait for the firefighters to come and give them a few bottles,” testified one of the airport staff. “Some wanted to go home, others asked for hotel rooms. From 4 a.m., they really started to get annoyed,” he added.
It was not until Thursday morning, around 7 a.m., that the situation calmed down, after negotiations between the airport teams and the passengers. These were able to leave at 11 a.m., to finally reach Marrakech.