Chaos over Crete: Couple experiences nightmare flight after holiday dream!

Chaos over Crete: Couple experiences nightmare flight after holiday dream!

A Swiss couple planned a relaxing vacation on the popular Greek island of Crete, but their dream vacation turned into a nightmare. On June 11, 2025, their Condor flight DE1234 took off from Zurich to Heraklion with 135 passengers and 6 crew members on board. However, strong winds over Crete made landing impossible. The pilot aborted the first attempt to land and tried again several times before the decision was made to fly to Athens without allowing passengers to disembark or receive food. An unfortunate situation that turned out to be extremely unpleasant for all travelers.

After several unsuccessful attempts to land on Crete, another attempt was made, but it also failed. The flight then went via Kos to Thessaloniki, where the passengers finally had the opportunity to leave the plane. Condor left the organization of overnight accommodation to the travelers. The hotels had to pay for this themselves, which led to further frustration.

Predicament of the passengers

The next day, several more attempts to land on Crete failed, so the crew decided to return to Athens. The passengers now had two options: they could either get out without luggage or fly back to Zurich. The couple's wife decided to fly home and spent a total of 18 hours on the plane, receiving only a glass of water.

32 hours after the original departure, they were finally back at the starting point in Zurich. Condor explained that extreme weather conditions had affected landings at Heraklion Airport. The airline apologized to those affected and asked them to contact customer service for possible refunds. Drinks were offered while we waited, but this did not help alleviate the inconvenience.

Condor flight statistics

Although the airline has an on-time performance of 78%, which means that 215 of 276 flights analyzed in the last three months arrived on schedule or with a maximum of 15 minutes late, this incident illustrates that even with high reliability, not everything goes according to plan. In Heraklion, Condor operates daily on key routes in Germany and several times a week to Zurich, underlining the importance of the airport for travelers. Details about their flight operations are on airport-heraklion.com to find.

Three days after the unpleasant experience, the lovers finally flew to Crete with another airline, but exhausted and delayed. An experience that made the vacation we had initially longed for monotonous and stressful.