Maltese Couple’s Mexico Dream Holiday Turns Travel Nightmare After Being Denied Entry At Airport
Maverick Farrugia and Alexia Formosa were thrilled at the prospect of a two-and-a-half week holiday in Mexico – but as their plane landed in Cancún, little did they know that their trip was about to go terribly wrong.
Speaking to Lovin Malta about their experience, the Maltese couple said they had travelled to Cancún via Madrid and had booked everything in advance, including accommodation and return flights to Malta.
However, when they landed on 9th January, officials took them and other European passengers to one side and asked them for their passports, which they gave up as soon as they were on Mexican soil.
“They waited for everyone to get off the plane before telling us to follow them,” Maverick said.
“We were taken to another official who asked us why we came to Cancún and we told them we were here on holiday and showed them all our booking confirmations and return flights. He then asked us what our jobs are, we told him where we work, and he told us to proceed to a second interview.”
Maverick and Alexia were then taken to another room where their passports were photocopied and photographed and they were told to wait in an adjacent room. When they asked for the status of their checked-in luggage, they were told it won’t be a problem.
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“We waited in this room for around two hours. At one point, I brought out my phone so that Alexia could call her mother and the officials demanded to know whether we were taking photos. The officials were speaking about us and laughed in our faces when we asked them questions. We felt as though we were being treated like criminals.”
“After a while, armed police officers entered the room, told us that we are going back to where we came from and transported us back to a plane along with three other people who were originally on the plane with us. We asked them why we were denied entry but we weren’t given a reason, we were just told that the authorities hadn’t accepted us.”
Their holiday ruined, Maverick and Alexia were forced to fly back to Madrid.
“After an 11-hour flight and two hours in an office, we were ordered to get on another nine-hour flight,” they said. “The flight attendants only gave us our passports back when we landed in Madrid.”
And their troubles weren’t over either.
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“I had converted around €3,000 to pesos before I arrived but when I opened my hand luggage on the plane, I couldn’t find them,” Maverick said. “We were also told that our checked-in luggage had been transported to the plane back to Madrid but when the plane landed, our luggage was missing. The other passengers who were denied entry had the same problem.”
Deflated and exhausted, Maverick said he wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone.
“We lost our flights, our hotel booking, the €3,000 we had in our hand luggage and all our best clothes which we had packed in our checked-in luggage. Hopefully, we manage to get something back from our insurance but we just want to go home now.”
Lovin Malta has reached out to Cancún Airport over why the couple was denied entry but they haven’t responded as of the time of writing.
Have you ever had a similar experience when travelling?
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