After nearly three full days stuck at an airport in Oakland, California, 280 weary and frustrated passengers on Norwegian Air finally landed in Oslo on Wednesday. Hundeds of passengers on other Norwegian Air flights, however, were stuck from Malaga to Miami.
The problems on board Norwegian Air’s flight from Oakland to Oslo began on Saturday when the flight was forced to turn around and return to Oakland because of indications of an oil leak. Chaos reigned as many passengers were left to find hotel rooms on their own. Some slept on the floor of a closed airport terminal with no food or drink on offer.
After first being told they’d finally be able to fly out on Monday morning, the flight was delayed once again, until Tuesday morning. Norway’s TV2 reported that Norwegian blamed the new delay on aircraft company Boeing, which delivered the wrong part for Norwegian’s grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The flight finally took off, with Oslo’s airport arrivals information showing that it landed in Oslo shortly after 2am on Wednesday, nearly three days late. Norwegian Air, meanwhile, was dealing with several other flight delays and cancellations on Monday and Tuesday, with 177 passengers stuck in Malaga, Spain and unable to travel home to Stavanger because of crew shortages.
Flights have also been severely delayed from Providence, Miami, Athens and Copenhagen this week, with domestic flight delays between Oslo and Bergen. On Wednesday, however, OSL’s statistics were showing that most Norwegian flights were leaving on time except for its afternoon flight to Los Angeles, which was three hours delayed. Norwegian officials have apologized for all the problems while passengers continued to complain of poor information and a lack of assistance.
newsinenglish.no staff
