Holidaymakers were reportedly forced to swelter on a parked aircraft for nearly four hours only to be told that it would not be taking off.
Almost 300 passengers were on the Thomas Cook flight at Manchester airport’s Terminal One yesterday – the hottest day of the year so far.
The Boeing 757 was supposed to take off from Manchester at 1.55pm on Sunday to fly 275 passengers to the Greek island of Kos.
But after a three-and-a-half hour delay in temperatures of up to 25’C, the flight was eventually abandoned due to a technical fault with the aircraft, the Manchester Evening News reported.
Thomas Cook said engineers had been doing their utmost to fix a technical problem on flight DE1724, from sister German airline Condor, but were unable to resolve the issue leading to the cancellation.
A spokesman said: “We’re extremely sorry to our customers for this delay which was due to a technical issue.
“Unfortunately it transpired it was not repairable today.
“We have arranged for an alternative aircraft to take the passengers and we’ve arranged hotel accommodation and transport for them tonight [Sunday].”
Passenger Andrew Whitehead, from Oldham, told the newspaper that those on board were initially told the delay was due to problems with airport ground crew before eventually being told it was a glitch with the aircraft’s satellite systems.
“It was absolutely roasting outside so you can imagine how hot and stuffy it was on the plane.
“The wait was just going on and on but we didn’t seem to be getting any information.
“Fair enough things can go wrong with planes, but to be sat there for so long was just ridiculous and it could have been handled so much better.
“They said they couldn’t hand out water until we were in the air and there lots of people with young kids and lots of people were getting pretty irate.”