Waking up at 6:15 am, with the prepared luggage from the night before, we left home around 7:15 am heading toward the airport Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat. After 30 minutes in the taxi, we arrived at the airport. Since we didn’t have to check in our pieces of luggage and we already did the check-in online, we arrived just in time. The plane initially planned to take off at 8:25 am, but it didn’t until 8:50 am, which is normal in my experience.
At the moment of taking off, after just a few seconds, the plane had to land back to the ground. It was a surprise for all the passengers, but we all stayed calm. After a few minutes, the captain spoke on the radio from the cockpit. It seems that the system has a problem. He explained that the plane has two modes: air and ground. Once it took off, it should have automatically changed to air mode, however, it did not but remained in the ground mode. For safety reasons, he had to stop the operation and call the technical service team to revise. We then also got the explanation from the cabin crews. The plane came back to the initial parking area.
A team of about 3-4 technician service arrived in a minivan and rushed up to the cockpit speaking to the pilot. The curtain that separated the cockpit area from the passenger’s cabins immediately closed to avoid the curious looks of all the passengers. After quite a while, the cabin crews started serving drinks to all. People started asking about the problem, the timing, etc. Some passengers seem already lost their scheduled meetings in Mallorca. There was no accurate answer from the cabin crews, which was comprehensible.
After about two hours, we were informed that due to this issue, the plane wouldn’t be able to continue with the trip, so we would have to move to another one. The passengers who couldn’t continue the trip to Mallorca will be transferred back to the gate.
Nearly an hour later, we all were moved to another plane to continue our trip to Mallorca. We arrived safely at nearly 13:00 hrs.
I believe we all felt lucky that the problem occurred at the early stage, so the pilots could act quickly and correctly on it. Personally, I felt thankful and congratulated on the action taken, and the service the Vueling crew has given to us.
Oh, just a reminder to you: I hope you will not meet this but if someday you get a delay with Vueling for more than 3 hours compared to the scheduled landing time, please claim compensation. Per their policies, each passenger will receive a compensation of 250.00 EUR for the delay. I did submit it and got for the both of us, my partner and myself after 11 days. The progress was really simple and easy to submit through this link of vueling. Then choose the claim that you want to do in the list. In this case, I did with the third one ¨Request compensation¨
It will take you to another window where you will interact with a chatbot, which was really helpful indeed. You just need to answer the questions and give the information. After that, you will receive an email confirmation of the submission with the reference number of your case, the link where you can follow up the status of your case.
After a maximum of 10 days, you will receive another email from Vueling with the instructions to complete your data. You will need to provide your bank details in the same chatbot where you made your claim. Depending on your bank, the country of your bank, etc. it will take a few more days for you to receive the money in your account. In my case, I received it the next day.
Overall, I was satisfied with all the services provided by Vueling.
To be continued…
