Actually, 177 passengers from Cologne and Hamburg wanted to take a cruise on the Mein Schiff 3 operated by Tui from Tenerife over Christmas and New Years. But that never happened because the charter airline Smartwings did not get the vacationers to the Spanish island in time.

The plan was to fly from Cologne / Bonn to Tenerife via Hamburg. However, not everything worked as planned on flight QS 3598, so that the 177 crusaders could not board. The Mein Schiff 3 had long since put to sea and boarding later on another island literally didn’t bring you on the chain.

The shipping company Tui Cruises explained to the “Ships and Cruises” portal: “Due to operational challenges, the Smartwings flight QS 3598 was able to travel from Cologne via Hamburg to Tenerife South on December 23.12rd. do not depart from Hamburg. We have tried everything to organize an alternative travel option for the 177 TUI Cruises guests so that they can start their planned cruise with the Mein Schiff 3 from Santa Cruz / Tenerife. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts, this was not possible. Therefore, with a heavy heart, we had to cancel the trip for the guests. If necessary, an overnight stay in a hotel in Hamburg was organized for guests. A return transport was organized by the airline for all guests from Cologne. "

The airline Smartwings sees the problem not in itself, but in the area of ​​handling. Petr Čeněk, Director Ground Operations at Smartwings, told “Ships and Cruises”: “We have to reject the claim that the airline Smartwings was behind the problem with this flight and the failure of the trip to take place. The real reason the flight was canceled was because of the circumstances that our airline was unable to influence. At the airport in Hamburg there was an extensive breakdown of the handling system and the handling company was not able to handle the travelers on time. The failure of the handling system not only affected this flight, but also the flights of other airlines. The handling company finally decided to process the travelers manually without the help of the handling system. As a result of the sharp increase in the number of employees on sick leave (due to the Covid 19 pandemic), the passengers on this flight were only handled by a single employee. "

The Smartwings manager also said: “The processing of travelers, which normally takes 90 minutes, was finally delayed to four and a half hours. The crew of this flight could not accept a further delay due to the flight norms (in the given situation we prepared a variant of the flight diversion via Prague, where a replacement crew was already provided). In a period of more than 5 hours, we repeatedly asked the airport and the handling company to allow passengers to board this flight, unfortunately in vain. So we suggested to the customer of the flight that the departure time be postponed to another day, which the client did not accept for certain reasons. We would like to assure you that we have made every effort to prevent the cancellation of the flight and to manage the flight according to the flight plan until the last moment. Unfortunately, for reasons that we could not influence ourselves, we did not succeed. It was the fatal failure of the handling company at the airport in Hamburg and we are taking appropriate steps in this matter. It should be added that we have not experienced anything like this in the last 20 years. We are very sorry that we were unable to provide the travelers with the service they paid for and that we were forced to cancel the flight. "

For the 177 holidaymakers who were deprived of their Christmas cruise, this is little consolation: In recent weeks, cruise ships have developed into problematic corona hurlers and trips have repeatedly had to be canceled. Again and again the ships are turned away from ports. For the “non-cruisers” of Mein Schiff 3, Tui Cruises wants to repay the money in full and grant discounts when booking a new trip.