Were going to leave a 14-year old alone in Rome for a week after overbooking a flight

"I don't understand how it can be messed up so much," says Telma Rós Jónsdóttir in an interview with a mbl.is reporter about the incident in Rome where she, her boyfriend, and a 14-year-old boy were not allowed to board a flight to Iceland that they had already paid for.

The Icelanders were not allowed to board the flight home due to overbooking, and the airline Wizz Air planned to send them and the boy to a hotel for a week until they could go home on the airline's next flight to Iceland.

Telma adds that the staff they spoke to said the boy was old enough to fly alone.

Claim he didn't know the boy was 14 years old

Arna Ösp Herdísardóttir is the mother of a 14-year-old boy who went to Italy for a training camp but was not allowed to go home on the same flight as his friends.

When he arrived at the airport on Saturday, Herdísardóttir says they informed him that he didn't have a seat on the flight, but that he could go through check-in and check again at the gate to see if he got a seat.

"He was always kept hopeful, that he would get a seat," she says in an interview with mbl.is. When her boy arrived at the gate, however, he was told the same thing.

His coach pointed out that he was only 14 years old, but the staff at the gate must have pretended they hadn't noticed. She says it's strange since his age was certainly stated on the booking.

Would have been left alone in Rome for a week

The boy was offered 250 euros in compensation and accommodation for a week until the next Wizz Air plane to Iceland. Herdísardóttir found it very strange that they planned to send a 14-year-old child alone to a hotel room where the boy was barely old enough to legally book it.

The coach offered to switch with him and she would then have received the benefits, but the employee assumed that she would receive the same help in getting accommodation as the boy.

A young Icelandic couple was in the same situation as the boy, as mentioned above, and then offered to look after him. Herdísardóttir says she doesn't know what she would have done if it hadn't been for them and says they were nice.

Telma Rós Jónsdóttir, one of those who looked after Herdísardóttir's son, says that there was no other option.

Herdísardóttir then agreed that her son would stay behind as long as he was accompanied and added that it would also not have been good if the coach had had to stay behind, as a group of children would then have had to fly home without a tour guide.

Make no effort to find volunteers

Jónsdóttir and her boyfriend had tried to check in for the flight the night before, but for some reason they couldn't get their tickets. So they arrived early the next day where they encountered the same thing as the boy.

According to her, the airline made no effort to find volunteers willing to stay longer in Rome.

The couple and the boy were promised assistance at the service desk. There, their benefits were increased to 400 euros, but they did not receive any assistance in booking flights.

Drained her bank account

"There is nothing we can book," Jónsdóttir says the staff told them. She then called Icelandair and emptied her bank account to book a flight home at the last minute.

Herdísardóttir also booked the same flight for her son and all three of them took a connecting flight home that stopped in Denmark.

"I was very grateful that they were able to follow him through because even though he might have been able to take a connecting flight alone, the circumstances were such that he was just scared," Herdísardóttir says.

She has now sent a complaint to the Italian aviation authorities.

"We need this money"

Arna has now spent ISK 300,000 to bring her son home. Telma also spent ISK 350,000 and both of them have applied for a refund. The only time they have heard from Wizz Air was when they only paid the 400 euro compensation to Jónsdóttir's boyfriend. Apart from that, they have not been able to reach them by phone or email.

"We need this money," Jónsdóttir says, but she is studying, which is also the reason why she could not have been in Rome this extra week.

Herdísardóttir says that she used social media to try to get the airline's attention, but subsequently only received private messages from fraudsters who claimed to be working for Wizz Air in order to get hold of her account information.

"We are not going to fly with them again," Jónsdóttir concludes about the airline.