Customers of the Austrian tour operator Idealtours had to go through a veritable odyssey in Innsbruck, because the cancellation of a Fokker 100 by Trade Air not only caused a delay of more than 18 hours, but also a completely unnecessary bus trip to Munich and back.

The tour operator mentioned lets the Croatian airline Trade Air serve some charter destinations from Tyrol. In addition, the last remaining Fokker 100 of this carrier is used from Innsbruck. On Friday, the 9A-BTE, which is now almost 30 years old, suffered a technical defect on the way from Thessaloniki to Tyrol and had to make a safety landing in Zagreb. The repair took time, because the regional jet could only be transferred back to Innsbruck on Saturday.

Passengers who wanted to travel to Kavala on Friday initially had to wait. Then it was communicated that the Fokker 100 had a defect and that it was not possible to fly from Innsbruck. But from Munich it should then go on vacation. The passengers were then taken to the Bavarian airport by bus, but nothing “made any difference”. On site, it was then said that there were no flights from Munich either, because there was a plane but no crew. Back on the bus and this then drove to the starting point, i.e. to Innsbruck. After this unnecessary bus trip, those affected stayed in a hotel at the expense of the tour operator and were then able to board their flight to Kavala on Saturday morning.

Trade Air flew the Airbus A319 with the registration 9A-BTJ from Pristina to Innsbruck. The passengers from the previous evening were taken to Kavala and from there they went back to Pristina. The travelers who wanted to start their Idealtours holidays on Saturday didn't have much of it. They only found out at the check-in counter in Innsbruck that their flights were delayed indefinitely. So they had to wait a long time.

The Fokker 100 with the registration 9A-BTE has meanwhile been repaired, but only arrived at 19:35 p.m. – coming from Zagreb – at the Tyrolean airport. However, the charter flight to Preveza, which should have departed at 8:10 a.m., was not carried out first, but Kefalonia, which was delayed since 14:45 p.m. The regional jet had left Innsbruck at 20:27 p.m. with the latter destination. The Preveza passengers had to wait even longer.

Airport manager Pernetta “transferred” from Air Dolomiti

In view of the extremely long waiting time, as well as the unnecessary bus trip to Munich, which some passengers also had to complete, it is almost a kind of "stair joke" that Innsbruck's airport boss Marco Pernetta was "left sitting" by Air Dolomiti in Frankfurt am Main on Friday evening. The manager was on his way back from an airport conference, but the evening course between the Lufthansa hub and Innsbruck was canceled again. So Pernetta had to spend the night in Frankfurt.

As a result, the early course Innsbruck-Frankfurt was canceled on Saturday. The airport director arrived in the late morning with an Air Dolomiti Embraer 195 at the airport he manages, which for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, which was already there due to the considerable Trade Air/Idealtours delays, asked him to be in front of the camera...