Snow, Flights and Yoga

With snow causing shutdowns at UK airports, passengers on a diverted Virgin Atlantic flight from New York are complaining, not about the weather but about special treatment given Madonna and her entourage.

Flight VS010 was supposed to land at Heathrow, but was instead diverted to Standsted Airport, where passengers sat on the plane for nearly three hours — except for Madonna, who was reportedly allowed to disembark two hours before everyone else.

“After about an hour, a bus came along and took her and her party of about 15 off the plane. It seemed a little unfair, it’s not like she is the President or anything. The rest of us all had to wait for another two hours,” a disgruntled fellow passenger tells the UK’s Daily Mail.

A statement from Virgin, obtained by AOL Travel News, says the plane was “diverted due to very difficult weather conditions” and the disembarkation was delayed by ground crew until buses arrived to take passengers to London’s Heathrow. “We apologize for any inconvenience this diversion caused, but for safety reasons this action was unavoidable.”

As for Madonna’s special treatment, Virgin says, “It is common across airlines that business- and first-class passengers disembark first and this is reflected in the higher cost of the ticket.”

An unidentified passenger, who was also in Virgin’s Upper Class, says “Madonna was taken off the plane way before the rest of the first-class people. We were all grumbling about it.” The passenger also complains the Queen of Pop used her hour-long delay to do yoga in the plane’s aisles.

Source: AOL/Daily Mail