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Date Published: 25/10/2022

ARCHIVED - Flight fiasco: Murcia-bound plane diverted to Alicante because Corvera airport was closed

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Corvera Airport in Murcia usually closes for business at 10.30pm

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Flight fiasco: Murcia-bound plane diverted to Alicante because Corvera airport was closed

It would perhaps be understandable for a tiny regional airport to limit its hours of operation, but passengers travelling from the UK were left stunned on Sunday night, October 23, when their flight was diverted to Alicante because the International Airport of the Region of Murcia was closed.

The Ryanair flight left London Luton two hours late and arrived in Spain at 12.40am. Unfortunately though, Corvera Airport had shut up shop more than an hour earlier and passengers landed in Alicante instead. They then had to pile on a coach back to Murcia, where many travellers had scheduled to pick up rental cars.

"Without knowing the reason, our flight was delayed for two hours. When we managed to get on the plane, we were inside without information for another hour and a half. We managed to take off English time at 9:30pm (10:30pm in Spain)," one disgruntled passenger, Nuria Villa, explained on Twitter.

Passengers weren't offered so much as a glass of water while they waited, Nuria complained, adding that the plane was half an hour from touching down before they were informed that they would be landing in Alicante rather than Murcia.

"I don't even know how to explain what I feel. Right now we are on a bus, on the way to the ghost airport to get the car," she wrote a short time later.

When asked for a comment, Aena indicated that it didn't know why the flight had taken off so late, and made it clear that every airline is aware of Corvera Airport's closing time – usually 10.30pm, although a margin of one hour is given in specific cases.

This is of little comfort to the inconvenienced passengers, around 50 of whom intend to file a joint lawsuit against Ryanair.

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