It was supposed to be a great week's vacation in Dubai, with the girls, to celebrate Nour's 15th birthday. The stay has taken on, day after day since Sunday, the appearance of an endless ordeal. As of midday on Wednesday, when they should have been in the United Arab Emirates for three days, Rizlène and her daughter were still stuck in Amman, the capital of Jordan.
It all starts on Sunday, at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. When they have to fly to Dubai, with a two-hour stopover in Amman, the mother-daughter duo quickly becomes disillusioned. “We were told that our flight was canceled because of Iran's attack on Israel,” says Rizlène. Jordan, like many countries in the Middle East, had closed its airspace following Tehran's strikes on the Jewish state.
With Iran's strike on Israel and the floods in Dubai, Rizlène and Nour lost three days of vacation. DR
“The company tells us that we have to come back the next day, which we do,” continues Rizlène. But Monday, again: the flight is canceled by the Royal Jordanian company. “It’s another round trip between Val-de-Marne and Roissy for nothing,” she regrets. I was disgusted and so was my daughter. »
Tuesday is the right one. Rizlène and Nour take off at 12:20 p.m. from Roissy, and land at 5:30 p.m. local time in Amman. “Our stopover was supposed to last two hours and we had to take off for Dubai from Jordan,” explains the mother. This was without taking into account the impressive and extremely rare floods that occurred in the United Arab Emirates. “We are told that it is impossible to take off, and that we will have to spend the night here. This time, it was too much hassle. A second hard blow, we felt like two black cats. »
“We feel like we’re prisoners”
The two Ile-de-France residents are, like other passengers, taken care of in Amman by the Jordanian company. “We were paid for the hotel and meals. The problem is that in Jordan you can't do anything if you don't have a visa. So we can't do anything other than going back and forth between the airport and the hotel, we're not allowed to walk around town or go to a restaurant, testifies Rizlène. We're stuck, we're at our wits' end. »
This Wednesday, another hassle: their flight to Dubai, which was to take off at 4:35 p.m. local time, is canceled again. “We are at the end, we can't take it anymore, we have the impression of being prisoners,” the mother almost cries on the phone. Faced with exasperated and exhausted customers at Amman airport, Royal Jordanian found a solution. Travelers are put back on a flight to Abu Dhabi, which leaves this evening at midnight, and can then travel to Dubai, which is an hour's drive away. “But this journey is at our expense,” complains Rizlène.
“I am waiting for a commercial gesture, but I have nothing”
If she is well aware that bad luck has disrupted her trip, she blames Go Voyages, with whom she booked her flights and her hotel. “I wanted to extend my stay until next Wednesday, just to recover my lost vacation days,” she says. I am waiting for a commercial gesture from them but I have nothing. After the fourth phone call, someone from the agency told me that they were going to contact the company to see if it was possible to change my flight and have me return two days later. As for the hotel, I have already been told that it is dead. »
Rizlène does not intend to stop there. “There is no way I would pay for the two extra nights out of my own pocket,” she says. If I don't have a commercial gesture, I will hire lawyers to manage this. »
Finally, the vacationer managed to change her return flight without any cost, by going directly to the Royal Jordanian airline counter at Amman airport. As for the hotel, things are still stuck: the Go Voyages agency confirms to Le Parisien that this reservation is neither modifiable nor refundable.