A passenger experienced a ‘panic attack’ while being ‘stranded’ at an airport for 22 hours due to a delayed Wizz Air flight, receiving two chocolate bars as sustenance.

Sandra Czaranecka, 33, was traveling from London Luton Airport to Warsaw, Poland, to visit family on December 7, but her flight was severely delayed due to strong winds. She claims passengers were left stranded with just a Balaton Bumm chocolate bar and a Marzipan stollen, offering less than 20% of the recommended daily calorie intake for an adult.

Taking to Facebook, Sandra shared a photo of the minimal snacks, sarcastically captioning, “According to this airline, these ‘snacks’ are enough to sustain an adult for the entire day.” Forced to spend £200 on a hotel and food, Sandra claims some passengers had no choice but to rely on the snacks as they couldn’t afford anything else.

Wizz Air confirmed the delays were caused by adverse weather and explained that multiple flight cancellations made securing hotel accommodations more difficult. They stated they provided snacks and water, fulfilled their obligations to passengers, and customers could claim reimbursement for additional expenses.

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However, Sandra described the experience as a ‘horror show’ and insists she deserves compensation for the ordeal.

Sandra, who lives in Bristol, said: “It was 22 hours of absolute horror. I just don’t think it’s fair because even if you cancel the flight at the last minute you need to provide people with some basic essentials. They gave us a chocolate bar and then they gave us something from the trolley which was another sort of chocolate bar and that was it.

“Only two snacks within 24 hours. I think that’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s just common decency and duty of care.”

Sandra explained how the trip away started to unravel. “We got on board no problem and then they told us the wind was too strong to fly. Everyone was quite understanding because we knew there were weather issues so we were expecting that there might be delays or cancellations,” she said.

“They put us on board the plane and held us there for four hours and after three hours they gave us a snack, which was a chocolate bar and water. If you wanted anything else they were like ‘oh you have to pay for it’. They told us that we won’t be able to fly today so they kicked us out onto the terminal.”

The procurement worker revealed the flight kept being delayed until it was eventually cancelled at 10pm and passengers were left ‘stranded’ in the airport. She claims that the link that the company sent to book a hotel through did not work and ‘crashed’ due to the number of people trying to use it, leaving multiple passengers having to find their own accommodation.

Sick of waiting, at midnight Sandra decided to fork out £200 for a hotel, food and taxis but four hours later was told the flight had been rescheduled. Sandra said: “They just left us stranded at the airport. I literally had a panic attack. I was so tired at this stage. I didn’t know what to do. There was no one from Wizz Air to advise on anything. They kicked us out so late there were no more hotels left. When I tried to book a hotel the website crashed via the link they sent.

“It was like midnight at this stage anyway. Me and these four girls decided to get a hotel off of our own back. We paid our own money.”

Sandra said that by the time they got to the hotel Wizz Air told them their flight had been rescheduled. After returning to the airport the passenger claimed that some people hadn’t eaten anything other than the two snacks in 22 hours and they finally took off after 1.30pm.

Sandra said: “People were literally exhausted. I’ve been flying for 11 years all around the world and I’ve never seen something like that. It was shocking.”

Sandra said that she has now received a refund from Wizz Air for her expenses but has not had any compensation. She added: “The reality is they’re going to say ‘it’s the weather conditions’. But you don’t leave people hanging like that. They could do so much better than that. That was insane. People know that weather conditions are dependent but how can you treat people like that? I’ve flown with Wizz Air multiple times and they were normally good.

The airline confirmed that due to the ‘adverse weather conditions’, it had to cancel Sandra’s flight along with 14 others, but pointed out many other airlines had to do the same. A spokesperson said that Sandra had access to the internet and that their terms for cancelled flights are ‘very clearly stated on the website’.

They said: “As a result of multiple flight cancellations, securing hotel accommodation for customers was more difficult than usual. However, Wizz Air fulfilled all its obligations to passengers by providing food, accommodation and transfers. As per current EC261 regulations, Wizz Air is not obliged to provide further compensation if the cancellation is due to extraordinary circumstances beyond reasonable control, including extreme weather.

“Details of these circumstances are available on the Wizz Air website. Any customers unable to source accommodation directly through the airline’s partners were reimbursed for bookings made themselves, which was the case for the customer in question. We apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused any of our passengers during this period, and stress that the safety of our passengers, crew and aircraft is our utmost priority.”

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