This is a rather amazing news story about passengers, on a flight from India to the UK last weekend, who were held hostage during a refueling stop in Vienna until they dug into their pockets and came up with some $35,000 between them, and only then did the pilots continue the flight. Those without money in their pockets were escorted to ATMs in the airport by flight crew. Even more amazing, no one seems to be going to jail for this and there are still some passengers stuck in Vienna because they didn't pay.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...00-to-fly-home

Company did not pay so

Passengers agreed to pay so they could fly to Birmingham and added: "We all got together, took our money out of purses £130

Typical Guardian sensationalism no one was "held hostage"

Odds are overwhelming all will recover the 130 Quid per person

No one will "go to jail" for this a funds issue...

Still yeat another reason to always insuremytrip.com

The passengers themselves said they were "held to ransom." You can read it in the Daily Mail if you are a right-winger:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/ar...ound-fuel.html


Comtel is Austrian-owned company and Austria is in the EU. This is not just a "funds issue."

I'm sure everyone concerned would appreciate your help in locating the pilots and flight staff who have yet to handover the money.

Also, for those who didn't read the stories, the passenngers did not "agree" to pay the money. Many of them had money taken out of their purses and others were "escorted" to ATM machines in the airport to get money to give to the flight crew when they said they didn't have money on them.

The Austrian company that owns the airline has launched an investigation into what happened to that money. They suspect it may have just been a shakedown by employees of a company that is going out of business and would therefore be unable to pay them. That would be theft and extortion, a crime for which people typically go to jail.

this happened to me as well. many years ago in Mexico, they passed the hat to buy gas for the flight. It was pay or stay so we all paid.

the airlines now been grounded, apparently whoever operates the flight between vienna and birmingham hadn't been paid..

I absolutely HATE that kind of a situation. That's why I always fly carrying a jerrycan with at least 5 gallons of jet fuel, just in case.

But the truth is, those passengers were lucky they weren't asked to push the plane all the way from the gate to the runway.