They are not about to forget their All Saints’ Day vacation in Djerba.
Léa Serrano went to Tunisia with her family during the second week of this fall break. With several people from Nice and many other French people (or Franco-Tunisians), the twenty-year-old had the unpleasant surprise of being stuck several days at Tunis-Carthage airport due to malfunctions of the Tunisian public airline Tunisair.
Monday November 4, she was still stuck in place after many delays and postponements.
Around her, passengers left “at the platform” would have passed 4 days more than planned in Tuniswhile the tone rose this Monday between travelers and reception and security agentsas evidenced by the videos that the young woman sent us.
On one of them, a baby a few months old, crying, in the arms of his upset parentstrying to convince an agent to let them through the boarding gates. In vain.
Customers are exhausted
“After a Djerba-Tunis flight which went well, we were supposed to board the Tunis-Nice on Sunday November 3 at 1:20 p.m. We never received an email or SMS and, once at the airport , the billboards indicated that our flight had been postponed until 7 a.m. the next day.”
Nothing serious at this stage, we just had to spend the night in a hotel paid for by the airline. Issue : “The taxi to get there was our responsibility. And this hotel was disgusting : cockroaches, hairs in the sheets…”
Result: a third of passengers stayed there, while another third spent a night elsewhere… when the last third slept at the airport.
Abandoned by the travel agency that had sold them the plane tickets, Léa and her family slept at their own expense in a hotel not far from the airport.
At 3:15 a.m., they took a taxi back to the terminal… only to finally realize on the spot that their Monday morning flight had this time been postponed to 8:45 p.m..
From, it’s radio silence on the Tunisair sidebut the noise level has gone up several notches at the airport. Overwhelmed counters, phones ringing in vain, the brand’s mobile application never updated… it’s chaos at the airport, where customers are at their wits’ end.
“I saw people almost come to blows, agrees Léa. People are screaming, for us it’s ‘only’ 36 hours of waiting, but some are very angry”. The small family of four must also pay for all your meals on site.
“Everyone started screaming.”
The French embassy in Tunisia got involved, chartering two planes to send passengers back to Paris and Lyon during the day on Monday.
“We are the last flight of the day, and we don’t know if it will actually take off. Anyway, there are too many people waiting here around me for us all to return to Nice this evening. One person at the embassy actually used the expression ‘company hostage-taking’ to describe what was happening to us.”
“There are children, old people, people crying…but no one gives us an answer”, continues the young woman.
As for Nice Côte d’Azur airport, we are aware of the postponements, but the agents do not have any further information. Tunisair-branded planes continue to take off from Nice.
Monday evening, as passengers heading to the Alpes-Maritimes were preparing to board, a clamor outside the door. Their flight was canceled again.
“The crowd just learned that there was no theft, everyone started shouting.” Léa’s family left to spend a second night there at his expense.
“Tunisair is lying, assures the young woman, upset. They continue to sell return tickets for the next customers, who end up passing us.”
Impossible, of course, to reserve tickets on other companies, stormed by tourists absolutely wanting to return home as quickly as possible. “There are no more places available.”
Tunisair promises to have rented 4 planes “to strengthen its current fleet following technical problems”
Monday at the end of the day, Tunisair published a press release following the “disruptions to its flights on November 1, 2, 3 and 4, 2024, caused by technical problems sudden attacks affecting several of its planes”, according to local media.
“The company apologizes for the inconvenience suffered by passengers and its partners, and assures that it is making all necessary efforts to overcome this situation and restore normal operations”we can read in this press release.
Tunisair thus specified “that it had leased three planes to strengthen its current fleetand that the procedures for renting a fourth device [celui qui devrait ramener les Niçois à bon port, ndlr] will be finalized in the coming hours, which will allow it to ensure the transport of its passengers to their destinations”, Tunisian media added Monday evening.
“The lack of immediate offers and the complexity of the procedures hindered the rapid resolution of the problem,” concludes the airline.
For the Riviera tourists and the Franco-Tunisians stuck there, the struggle continued Monday evening.
Tunisair in turmoil
Hard pressed in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic and because of Tunisia’s political instability, Tunisair regularly experiences difficulties.
End of July 2024, the CEO of the airline was imprisoned for accusations of “corruption”. Khaled Chelli was detained as part of an investigation that began with the arrest of the secretary general of the internal union of TunisairNajmeddine Mzoughi.
Coincidentally, a Niçois who left for Tunisia for a week of vacation in March 2023 with Tunisair contacted us this Monday, November 4, to tell about his setbacks.
“My plane took off more than four hours late that day. Many Tunisians told me, fatalistic but angry, that this was unfortunately ‘usual’.”
“I then tried to get compensation, but I never got a response. So, I went through a specialized company, RefundMyTicket. A year later, I am still waiting for a possible refund.”
