Dozens of passengers are waiting for news and accommodation
A TUI fly Netherlands plane en route on flight OR703 from Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) to Amsterdam via Bonaire (Dutch Caribbean) made a precautionary landing on Curaçao last night. The landing of the Boeing 787-8 registered PH-TFL went without problems, but about a hundred passengers say they will be left on their own at Willemstad airport.
“We have been sitting here for about six hours now. Without food, without drinks, without anyone from TUI,” one of the passengers, Tom Decabooter, told Dutch television channel NOS.
Petra Kok of TUI Netherlands states that of the three hundred passengers on board, about two hundred have been accommodated. “It is very busy in Curaçao. It is Easter. We have been calling like crazy, but hotels are almost all full. We even spent a while working on an empty nursing home. But okay, it is true that there are still some 100 people who have no shelter. That is annoying enough, because I understand that the airport is now closed.”
The plane departed from the airport of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic as planned. Things went wrong after the stopover on Bonaire.
“What I understand is that the captain noticed a crack in the window in the cockpit after the stopover on Bonaire. And with a crack in the window over the ocean, you’d rather not do that. So, just to be safe, he made a precautionary landing on Curaçao,” said TUI Netherlands spokeswoman Kok.
The landing went smoothly and without panic, says Decabooter. However, it took a long time before the passengers were allowed to leave the plane. “During that time we got something to eat and drink. Then it took another two hours before we got through customs,” he says.
And now we have to wait and see when the group of about a hundred remaining passengers will be accommodated and when a replacement flight to Amsterdam has been arranged. “We can’t get to everyone because some of those hundred people are behind customs, but we have already sent an update text three times,” said TUI spokeswoman Kok.
Source: NOS
UPDATE
A replacement aircraft, a Boeing 787-8 of Italian leisure airline Neos (a former TUI subsidiary) will fly to Willemstad, Curaçao, to pick up the stranded passengers. It will leave the Caribbean island on Wednesday around noon. Meanwhile, the passengers can remain free of charge at their hotel. Additionally, they will get a €600 compensation under EU 261.
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