“It’s a hostage-taking”: dozens of Nice residents stuck for several days in Tunisia after a series of cancellations by the national airline Tunisair

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.”