Plane takes off without dozens of passengers who were left stranded in stairwell

Dozens of holidaymakers hoping to jet off to Spain were left waiting in a stairwell as their plane took off without them.

Passengers at Manchester Airport were ‘gobsmacked’ after the Jet2 flight took off to Alicante without them today.

The group had shown their passports to the airline’s staff and had their boarding passes scanned, but were left standing in the stairwell for up to 40 minutes without any idea of what was going on.

They were under the impression that they were waiting for a member of staff to open the doors to let them onto the stairs up to the plane, or onto a bus to take them to the aircraft.

Jet2 has now told the passengers there was an ‘error on the stairwell directions’ and has issued an apology.

Matt was one of the passengers due to travel on the LS879 flight to Alicante, scheduled for 7am. He said he was ‘gobsmacked’ over what happened and claimed Jet2 staff had told him that it had ‘never happened before’.

Matt told the Manchester Evening News how he and his son had arrived at the airport on time, made their way through security, then headed to the gate with time to spare when the flight was called.

After passengers on the first half of the plane were called through boarding, the number range for Matt’s seat was called.

He said: ‘We’ve all gone through to the gate and boarded. But instead of carrying on onto the plane, there were some stairs, so the herd mentality is that we all went down the stairs and followed each other. There were a lot of us.

‘And then we’re thinking ‘why aren’t these doors open’. We thought a bus would come for us and take us to the plane. We were there for 10 minutes, 20, 30, then we thought ‘what’s going on’. We were literally stuck like caged animals.’

Matt said an airport worker then came over from the runway to ask what was going on. He then reportedly told the passengers, ‘the plane’s gone’.

Matt said he was told that staff do not carry a headcount once passengers have boarded the plane.

‘That plane is at least 36 people light, it’s bizarre. You’d think the captain would ask if they had a full flight,’ he added.

Matt said he and the other passengers had been given a £10 voucher from Jet2 while waiting to find out when the next flight would be available to them to Alicante.

He added: ‘I’ve got my son here who suffers from anxiety, and I’ve brought him to take him away. It’s like an episode of Fawlty Towers, you’ve never seen anything like it.

‘They’re saying now that there should have been the red rope to divert you onto the plane, but that wasn’t, so everyone just went down. It’s unfathomable. I don’t even think this has ever happened before.’

In a statement, a Jet2 spokesperson said: ‘We are aware that flight LS879 from Manchester to Alicante departed without some customers this morning, and we are investigating this as a matter of urgency with the airport.

‘Our team are looking after these customers, and we have already arranged for them to take other flights to Alicante today. We would of course like to apologise to these customers.’

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