Passengers travelling to Malta from Brussels on Friday evening were forced to spend the night in the EU’s capital after the aircraft’s door was damaged by a movable bridge when the aircraft stopped at its allocated space.

Airport officials and company representatives said the movable bridge at gate B01 had dented the aircraft’s door just after it landed in Brussels at around 7.40pm. Engineers were called in to assess the damage but they could not certify that the aircraft was operable without checking with the manufacturer’s manual and carrying out further testing.

Those waiting to board flight KM421 to Malta soon realised that they were in for a long wait. Boarding should have started at 7.40pm but at around 8pm the gate desk staff announced that the flight had been delayed by 15 minutes due to air traffic congestion.

However, Air Malta’s flight crew and engineers were seen inspecting the aircraft’s fuselage under the door, suggesting that the delay was due to a more serious problem than air traffic congestion.

At 8.40pm, airport staff announced that the flight had been delayed until 10pm because “of a technical fault”. By that time, many of the passengers became frustrated not because the flight was delayed but because of the lack of information about what was happening.

A voucher worth euro 3 exchangeable at one of the coffee shops did little to appease an increasingly irate planeload of people. A further delay till 11pm was announced, but by then some of the passengers appeared to have lost their cool, with many insisting with the airline representative that they wanted to know if the flight would depart or else be given accommodation until a replacement aircraft was flown in.

One Italian passenger became so angry that he started gesticulating at the Air Malta representative and then called the airport police on his mobile phone. Loud enough for all to hear, the man told the police that he was being “kidnapped” and told them to order Air Malta to unload his luggage. Once off the phone, he started criticising Air Malta and Malta.

Another announcement was made at 11pm and the passengers were told they had to wait until 12.30am when a “decision will be taken whether the aircraft will depart, or you will be taken to the Sheraton Hotel and spend the night there”. A voucher worth euro 16 for dinner was provided but by that time most were fed up with the situation and the way they were being treated.

As one passenger said: “I don’t mind a 30-minute delay or at most one hour, but to be left without any definitive reply from 8pm until 12.30am is totally unacceptable. By 10pm they should have known whether the aircraft was serviceable or not.”

Another passenger concurred: “We should have been told when it became clear to the engineers and the airline that the aircraft would not fly out this evening. It would have made much more sense, and it would have been fairer on the passengers if we booked into the hotel at 10pm. At least we would have had a decent rest.”

Other passengers said they would be complaining to the airline and demanding compensation.

According to the European Union’s Air Passenger Charter, if the airline operating a flight expects a delay of up to four hours, it must “give you meals and refreshments, hotel accommodation when necessary (including transfers) and communication facilities”. The latter were not provided to the passengers of KM421.

For delays of five hours or more, “the airline must also offer to refund your ticket (with a free flight back to your initial point of departure, when relevant).

“I will be asking for compensation. I am not angry at Air Malta for the delay because the fault was not its own doing, but to be treated like this is unacceptable. Someone should have taken a decision earlier. It is true that we were given hotel accommodation but the matter should have been handled better. We should have been given a copy of the charter of Air Passenger Rights when the delay was announced. The airport didn’t have any copies,” one female passenger lamented. A copy was later provided.

Following a brief stay at the airport hotel from 1.30am, the exhausted passengers returned to the airport at 4am for the return flight home at 5.20am aboard a replacement aircraft.