Flight Cancelled After Plane Toilet Malfunctions, Passengers Sleep On Airport Floor

A Wizz Air flight from London to Budapest was cancelled after a toilet on the plane malfunctioned, Tuesday.

There were more than one issue concerning the flight. Katharine Hay, a reporter from Brighton who was traveling with her boyfriend, was one of the first ones to go to the restroom of the plane just after boarding the plane. What met her eyes was excrement overflowing from the toilet pot.

"I’m really tired and delirious and everyone is exhausted. Before we took off, I went to the toilet and noticed there was urine all over the floor. I went into the other toilet and there was poo on the seat. It had bubbled up and splashed over the toilet. I pointed this out to the air hostesses and they looked at it nervously and were discussing while walking up and down the aisle,” she told the Sun.

Soon after, one of the passengers was suspected of carrying contraband on the plane. After he stormed off the flight, the other passengers were made to wait on the runway till everyone’s carryon luggage was checked to make sure that he had not passed the contraband to anyone else.

After being forced to wait for three and a half hours, the passengers were informed that the flight was cancelled. Since all hotels near the airport facility were filled up, a bus which was carrying some of the passengers to one such place had to turn back and return to Gatwick. As a result, most of the passengers resorted to sleeping on the airport floor or café benches.

"They said we would all be put up in a hotel for the night. But after four hours in a queue they said there were no hotels left,” Hay said.

Although the flight was rescheduled to 4 p.m. the next day, another issue arose with the replacement plane. The tow bar used to move it into place broke, causing a delay of more than four hours. The airline offered the passengers food tokens, which they used to buy sandwiches and drinks.

"The [first] flight had to undergo unscheduled technical maintenance shortly before departure,” a Wizz Air spokesman said as a form of apology. “As engineers deemed the aircraft needed a replacement part, the flight was rescheduled for the following day. For those who did not ask or were unable to be accommodated in a hotel overnight due to a lack of availability will have their costs reimbursed by Wizz. Wizz Air sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience this long delay has caused. The safety of our passengers, crew and aircraft remains our number one priority."