Tame cancels flight but Cuenca-bound passengers refuse to get off the airplane

When passengers on a Tame flight bound for Cuenca were diverted to Guayaquil Thursday morning, they assumed the delay would be short and that they would soon make their destination.

Tame jet lands in Cuenca despite “bad weather.”

Instead, the flight was sent back to Quito and the captain announced that the flight to Cuenca had been cancelled due to bad weather.

Looking out the airplane windows, passengers saw nothing by blue skies and  refused to deboard. “The weather was beautiful and I called my wife in Cuenca and she it was nice there too,” said Gustavo Larrea, who was returning from a two-day seminar in Quito. “We would have understood if there were storms but there weren’t any.”

The crew of Tame flight 173 demanded repeatedly that passengers get off the aircraft, but were met with shouts and catcalls. “We insisted that the flight continue to Cuenca,” Larrea said. “Most of us are tired of Tame missing its schedule and cancelling flights for no good reason.”

Tame officials finally relented and the flight took off for Cuenca at 2 p.m.

Once on the ground in Cuenca, several passengers went to the airport office to file complaints against Tame.