"They have left us stranded." This is how Alejandro Romero expresses himself, a 75-year-old from Asturias who saw his flight from Lanzarote to Oviedo with the company Vueling canceled on Saturday due to the coronavirus crisis and who complains that they have not given him a solution to return home until a week later. In addition, this retiree claims that the airline only offers him a flight with a stopover in Barcelona, so he fears being trapped in the city of Barcelona as well.
"They tell us that they would get us out next Saturday but via Barcelona and that we also have to spend a night there and find our own accommodation," says this man, who has been in Lanzarote with his partner since March 7 and who claims to know six other people in the same situation. "We are afraid that they will leave us in Barcelona. We wouldn't like it because the situation is worse," adds Alejandro, who demands that they be offered a direct flight to Asturias, since they are also a population at risk.
According to his account, Alejandro arrived on the island on March 7 and on Saturday, shortly before the return time, a person called him from Gijón to warn him that his flight had been canceled. "Then I spoke to the travel agency, but they told me no, that it wasn't canceled, and that we should go to the airport," he says. However, upon arriving there, he found that "there were many flights canceled" and that indeed his was one of them.
"That was a chaos and, on top of that, when we returned to Playa Blanca to the hotel, they tell us that there are no more places," adds this man, who assures that they had to find new accommodation themselves because "Vueling said they didn't want to know anything."
Accommodation expenses of more than 1,700 euros
Since then, Alejandro and his wife have been staying in a five-star hotel in the southern tourist town, because he says it was "the only place" they found. However, for this, he says that they had to advance the payment of the accommodation for a week, which amounts to "1,725 euros."
"And we don't know if someone is going to pay us for this, because at the travel agency they tell us yes, that Vueling will take care of it, but what if they don't pay us? Because this is very expensive," says this man, who also explains that the accommodation only includes breakfast, so they have to pay for meals separately. In fact, he says that since they cannot go out to eat outside the hotel, they are only having dinner there. "Because that's money too," he points out.
Likewise, this man says that he needs medication for his blood pressure and that, although he has prescriptions, he has had problems getting them in Lanzarote without having to pay for them.
"In a pharmacy they didn't want to give them to me without a prescription, and of course I have the prescription in Gijón, and I only brought pills for 10 days, not for 20. They told me they would sell them to me and it's not about not paying 10 or 20 euros, it's that it's my right," says Alejandro, who luckily assures that he has finally obtained his medication in another establishment.
