"This is typical of a banana country. Football here takes precedence over everything and everyone," protested one of the 80 passengers who had just lost their seat on the last flight from Vigo to Madrid. The lament at the Air Nostrum complaints desk described, between astonishment and indignation, a surreal situation: minutes before, those passengers were queuing to board, but suddenly the airport's public address system warned that a charter flight operated by the same company and in which the Sevilla Football Club team was about to travel would take off first. who had played that afternoon at the Balaídos stadium against Celta de Vigo. Two planes were waiting for both passengers, side by side, but the travellers going to Madrid were alerted when they saw that the football expedition was not on the charter but on the commercial plane, which in theory was going to take them to the capital.
At that moment, the public address system burst in again to explain that the flight to Madrid had been cancelled. Someone decided that the aircraft that was going to make that route would leave for Seville with the football team, and at half its capacity. The other plane, the charter plane, which was initially planned for the players and was parked there, had suffered a breakdown and had been declared by Air Nostrum as "unfit to fly". The company, which has a franchise agreement with Iberia for regional flights, assumes that the only thing they can do is apologize for what happened. "We deeply regret the damage caused to passengers by an unfortunate error attributable solely to Air Nostrum. Each of the passengers will be contacted next week to compensate them for the inconvenience caused," they said in a statement.
The Sevilla players board the plane, in an image taken from inside the terminal by the passengers who were unable to fly.
Those affected were offered accommodation in a nearby hotel and were summoned at half past eight in the morning on Sunday, again at the Vigo terminal, to travel by bus to Madrid, where they arrived after three in the afternoon. "They told us that there were no planes going to take off from Vigo on Sunday morning and that was why we had to go by bus, but in the end one left Vueling for Barcelona and another from Air Europa to Madrid," says Lucía Lois, one of those affected. There were just over 40 people. The rest of the passengers looked for alternatives to try not to miss connections that in some cases were even transoceanic, and they grouped themselves on Saturday in taxis to brave the storm at dawn and travel the 600 kilometers that separated them from Barajas. The intention of the majority is also to join forces to present Air Nostrum with a collective claim that includes the payment of compensation.
The Sevilla players arrived at their homes at one o'clock in the morning and on Sunday morning they carried out, according to the club's official channels, a "recovery training" at the training ground in the Andalusian capital. On Wednesday, they play a Champions League match in London.
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