The Volotea plane accumulated a three-hour delay to repair an engine with tape, with passengers on board (photo)

A true story, which occurred on the Catania-Venice flight. A very unusual low-cost airline, with tickets selling for €250 for flights to 80 Italian cities. A letter from ENAC, after too many canceled, delayed, and overbooked flights. But it's time to intervene.

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Volotea service disruptions

VOLOTEA SERVICES

Volotea , a Spanish low-cost airline operating in 80 Italian cities, has introduced a new practice for its aircraft: on-the-fly maintenance , with passengers on board, engine repairs with tape, and interminable delays. All tested in the field.

ALSO READ: Ryanair cancels flights, yes to low-cost airlines. But no to workers being squeezed like lemons.

VOLOTEA DELAYS

The flight on Saturday, August 25th, from Catania to Venice , scheduled for 2:25 PM (with the code V71261 ), was perfect. Around 1 PM, as I arrived at the airport , I received a text message from the airline saying they were "sorry," but the plane I was supposed to catch was delayed by an hour for unspecified "operational reasons." Let's hope for the best, I thought.

Arriving at the airport, I have my first unpleasant surprise. The delay is actually longer than the one the airline reported in its text message, coming to an hour and thirty minutes. I don't understand the reason for this discrepancy, and with holy patience I wait for boarding, only to find out, after doing the math, that we're already a couple of hours late. Even boarding itself raises some suspicion: the ladies don't make announcements over the loudspeaker, but speak loudly, as if they were at a stadium. Yet there are hundreds of us passengers who need to figure out what to do.

VOLOTEA AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE

Finally, we board, but here begins a second ordeal. Once boarding is complete, the plane doesn't take off, and we're another hour late . The hostesses, very kind and smiling, are at a loss, and all is quiet. At most, they get a few glasses of water, offered by the company, especially since the plane is packed with children. So the passengers begin to protest, demanding precise information, and they don't understand why they're being held captive on the plane. Finally, a hostess (how do they train these poor, penniless women?) plucks up courage and, in broken Italian, warns us that maintenance work is underway that will last "a few more minutes." Wrong. More time passes, and finally we hear the voice of the captain, rather annoyed, who, in terrible English, warns us: "I had asked not to board the flight until the work is completed, but unfortunately the airport management wanted to do the opposite..." It's always someone else's fault, and for us cattle herds there isn't even the consolation of a word of apology.

At this point, the passengers begin to get angry. There are shouts , protests , threats , and then comes the dramatic turn of events. An airport employee takes the microphone and explains the delay: "We're doing an engine repair with tape . Just half an hour and we're off..." The effect of this bizarre and inappropriate message is explosive. With tape? An engine? Are we crazy? Many want to disembark, but the Volotea hostesses warn: if you do, you'll have to stay at Catania Airport until the plane arrives in Venice. Everyone is a prisoner. Faced with the passengers' fears about the tape being repaired on the engine, the airport employee takes the microphone back, apologizes for his rather imprecise language, and assures them that there are no problems for the safety of the passengers or the security of the flight. Thank goodness.

TO KNOW MORE: We will no longer fly with Ryanair until the company resolves the dispute with its employees.

VOLOTEA AIRLINE PROBLEMS

Finally, we take off, and the plane arrives in Venice more than three hours late , where we even get a round of applause, relieved by the fear of a risky flight. I have time, on board, to figure out how much we paid for the tickets. Mine cost around €250 . The same amount paid by many other passengers: therefore, Volotea is a low-cost airline sui generis, charging very high fares and perhaps receiving regional subsidies for its low-cost flights to cities with low traffic. A mystery that needs to be clarified.

Before writing this story, I gathered some information about the company, and contacted ENAC , the national body responsible for safeguarding the safety and rights of passengers for all airlines operating in Italy. And here I made another discovery. In early August, ENAC's director general, Alessio Quaranta, wrote a rather harsh letter to the company's top management. This came after hundreds of complaints about canceled flights, biblical delays, and constant overbooking. The letter ended with a threat of severe measures , which, as per regulations, are very severe: from suspending ticket sales in Italy to requiring the company to protect passengers who have already purchased tickets and have them fly on the same route with other airlines. It seems to me, and I've gathered several testimonies from regular Volotea customers, that since ENAC's letter, the situation has only worsened , and we've ended up with a plane that, for a flight of one hour and forty minutes, accumulates a delay of over three hours. To fix an engine with scotch tape. Perhaps the time has come for ENAC to stop writing letters and threats and take some action that will set an example for all airlines flying to Italy.

Cover image credits: Cristian Storto/Shutterstock.com

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