Chaos about Crete: Pair experiences nightmare flight to vacation space!
Chaos about Crete: Pair experiences nightmare flight to vacation space!
A Swiss couple has planned a relaxing holiday on the popular Greek island of Crete, but the dream vacation became a nightmare. On June 11, 2025, her Condor flight DE1234 started from Zurich to Heraklion with 135 passengers and 6 crew members on board. However, strong wind over Crete made landing impossible. The pilot broke off the first attempt at landing and tried again several times before the decision was made to light Athens without the passengers being able to get out or get meals. An unfortunate situation that turned out to be extremely uncomfortable for all travelers.
After several unsuccessful attempts to land on Crete, another attempt was made, which, however, also failed. The flight then led via Kos to Thessaloniki, where the passengers finally had the opportunity to leave the plane. Condor left the organization of accommodation for the night to travelers. The hotels had to pay them themselves, which led to further frustration.
The predicament of the passengers
The next day the next day failed several further landing tests on Crete, so the crew decided to return to Athens. There were now two options in front of the passengers: they could either get out without luggage or fly back to Zurich. The couple's wife decided to take the return flight and sat on the plane for a total of 18 hours, where she only received 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 the landings at Heraklion Airport. The airline apologized to those affected and asked them to contact customer service for possible reimbursements. Drinks were offered during the waiting time, but that helped not alleviate the inconvenience.
flight statistics from Condor
The airline has an on-time performance of 78%, which means that 215 out of 276 analyzed flights have arrived in the past three months or with a maximum of 15 minutes late, but this incident illustrates that even with high reliability, everything does not go according to plan. On Heraklion, Condor operates every day on important routes in Germany and several times a week to Zurich, which underlines the importance of airport for travelers. Details of your flight operations can be found on Airport-heraklion.com
Three days after the unpleasant experience, the lovers finally flew to Crete with another airline, but exhausted and late. An experience that made the initially longed -for vacation monotonous and stressful.
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Ort | Heraklion, Griechenland |
| Quellen | |