Woman shows herself ‘living’ at Rio airport in viral video after plane delays flight for 4 days (exclusive)

Vienna Skye spent nearly $4,000 on one-way tickets so she and her mother could fly back home to the United States

• Vienna Skye and her mother spent four days at Rio de Janeiro airport when their United Airlines flight back to the US was continually delayed.

• En route to Brazil, the mother-daughter duo endured a nightmarish layover in Houston that saw them sleeping alongside other delayed passengers in airport beds.

• When their original flight was canceled, they spent $4,000 on a one-way ticket to New York.

After traveling to Brazil to attend a wedding, Vienna Skye and her mother had an unexpected reprieve in South America. They didn’t spend their long stay exploring or sightseeing, but after four days of flight delays, the mother-daughter duo got to know Rio de Janeiro airport in depth.

Skye, 25, detailed her experience “living at the airport” in an Instagram Reel that reached 3.5 million viewers on the app. She showed images of her and her mother, Donna, on their fourth day passing through the terminal as they waited for United Airlines to finally clear their flight back to Newark, New Jersey.

“I didn’t sleep because United Airlines continually canceled my flight for four days in a row. So I just got stuck at the Rio de Janeiro airport with absolutely no place to sleep,” Skye began in a voiceover.

The New York-based model and content creator tells PEOPLE that they arrived at the airport on a Sunday afternoon. She and Donna only arrived in the US the following Thursday, around 1am EST.

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As Skye explained in her viral video, the prolonged drive home was made even more frustrating by a series of resulting inconveniences. She and other travelers boarded and disembarked the same aircraft multiple times during the multi-day delay, and they had to leave the airport each time they were removed from the aircraft, meaning Skye had to retrieve her checked luggage three separate times. .

She and her mother also went through Brazilian customs six times when, normally, they would only have gone through twice – once when entering and once when leaving the country.

Skye told People that United put them up in a hotel for their first extra night in Rio since their flight was originally canceled and rescheduled for the next morning. Over the next few days, however, it became difficult to find times and places to rest because United continually delayed the flight, which meant mother and daughter had to stand by and wait for updates at the airport.

“Ultimately, there was no explanation,” says the Instagram star. “They kept saying maintenance.”

Skye also claims that the plane’s crew was not very sympathetic to the plight of their passengers, but she understands that they were trapped in the same difficult circumstances.

“There was an elderly person with his wife or daughter, I’m not sure, who needed medication, and [the flight attendants] we weren’t being supportive at all,” says the social media star. “My mom also has thyroid issues and didn’t have enough medication, because one or two days, yeah, you should pack that. But four days is a lot.”

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Skye continues: “People were obviously very overwhelmed and freaking out about it. The attendants weren’t much help, but then again, they’re also stuck in that position, they can’t go home either.”

The harrowing trip home actually marked a full itinerary of travel woes. On the way to Brazil, Skye and Donna endured an uncomfortable night between flights.

“We had a layover in Houston and United also canceled that flight and there were no hotels. They didn’t put us in a hotel, so they gave us beds to sleep in,” Skye told People. The cribs – which she showed off in a clip from her Rio airport recap video – were less than ideal, says Skye.

“I was trapped in some horror movie, that’s how I felt,” she recalls from her accommodations at the Texas airport. “Imagine lying down on a piece of plastic with 50 other people, and every time someone moved, you would wake up… The lights were on all night and they played 80s music all night.”

Looking back, Skye says the Houston airport was preferable to the sleepless nights in Rio. “At the time, I thought, ‘This was a crazy experience.’ But on the way back, I would like to have a crib,” she adds.

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In her video, Skye recalled her last attempt to leave Brazil on her original United ticket: “Around 9pm on my third day, I got ready to board the flight that I should have known wouldn’t take off. on that plane and there were six other people on it,” she explained in her Instagram vlog.

Sharing more details with PEOPLE, the Instagram creator claims he was informed of several issues with the plane’s lights and engines during its final wait on the tarmac. Eventually, Skye says the pilot stated he didn’t “feel comfortable flying” and crew members advised passengers to look for options with other airlines since there were no longer plans to reschedule the flight.

“There were only two seats left on another flight that took off the next day. I booked this as soon as they told us… they had cancelled,” says Skye. Her and Donna’s new tickets home — a Delta flight to New York City’s LaGuardia Airport — cost nearly $4,000 in total.

“I knew this was crazy, but it was what we were advised to do,” the model told People. According to Skye, the airline refunded half of her original $2,000 round-trip airfare to Brazil, but despite her extensive communications with United officials, she was not compensated for the new airfares.

A United Airlines representative issued a statement to PEOPLE, writing, “We apologize to the customer for their frustrating travel experience and have provided a refund for the unused flight. Customers have accepted our additional offer of travel certificates and we look forward to welcoming them. back.”

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Skye ended her video by seeking advice from her followers, asking, “Does anyone know what I should do in this situation? This is unheard of, right? I’m speechless and I don’t even know how to deal with this.”

Before her recent experience, Skye said she was a frequent United flyer, but many comments on Instagram suggested she avoid the airline in the future.

“I always fly United. I mean, I have a lot of problems with them, but it was a [Premier] Member of 1K, which means I flew a lot last year,” she told People. “But now I’m scared to fly with them again.”

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Read the original article at People.