James Corden vented his frustration at airport staff on Sunday, but onlookers insist the temperamental TV presenter was only voicing his opinion after enduring a nightmarish flight.
Corden, 45, was flanked by fellow passengers after landing in Lisbon, where he was seen confronting a British Airways employee during a turbulent trip to the UK from Faro in southeastern Portugal.
But those on the flight claim he was speaking for all of them after the plane was forced to make an emergency stop in Lisbon due to a technical fault.
It’s understood that the plane struggled to gain altitude as soon as it left the Algarve and circled for 45 minutes, never reaching altitude before announcing an emergency landing.
Vanessa, who was on the same flight with her mother and husband, told Metro of the mid-flight ordeal: ‘It was something along the lines of, “Gather your possessions as best you can, take off your shoes, and when you’re told to by the airplane staff, please adopt the brake position and when we land if you’re able, please find your nearest emergency exit and vacate the plane.
James Corden vented his frustration at airport staff on Sunday, but onlookers insist the temperamental TV presenter was only voicing his opinion after enduring a nightmarish flight
Corden was flanked by fellow passengers after landing at London Heathrow , where he was seen confronting an airline employee after a turbulent trip back to the UK from Faro
‘Basically, what had happened was the flaps on the airplane wing which are supposed to go down when you are in the air won’t go down, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to raise them on landing.’
Passengers were eventually told they would no longer have to assume the brake position, before spending three hours on the tarmac in Lisbon before the plane was finally taken out of service.
And Vanessa claims Corden – who once fell out with a New York restauranteur over his alleged treatment of waiting staff – kept passengers entertained by posing for selfies as they made their way back to the UK.
‘He walked up and down the aisles talking to people, and let everybody take a selfie with him,’ she said.
‘I made a joke and went, “Oh if we’re all going to die. You could tell us how does the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special end?” and he went “Do you really want to know?” and I went “Yeah.” He went, “I can’t tell you.”
‘Then he said, “but do you want to know what happened on the fishing trip?” and I was like “Yes! I do!” and he was like, “I can’t tell you that either.”‘
Vanessa confirmed the presenter confronted a staff member after passengers vacated the plane at Heathrow, only to be shepherded into the wrong queue.
‘So then BA finally let us off the plane,’ she recalled. ‘We’re in the terminal and there was not a member of BA staff to be found. And they put us in immigration queues. And there was just no one there telling us what was going on.’
But those on the flight claim he was speaking for all of them after the plane was forced to make an emergency stop in Lisbon due to a technical fault
It’s understood that the plane struggled to gain altitude as soon as it left the Algarve and circled for 45 minutes, never reaching altitude before announcing an emergency landing
‘The people he’s speaking to in that picture are the flight staff on our plane. I watched him fist bump the pilot as he got off the plane, he said, “Thank you very much.”‘
According to Vanessa the presenter was vexed because passengers had been directed towards the wrong queue, among them families with young children.
She said: ‘James was a club flyer and he stood there, and was like “What about all these people who’ve got all these kids with them?” like saying that’s not acceptable. It’s not right.’
Passengers were eventually given a flight to London at 9:30 the following morning and Corden was ‘stood in the same queue as everybody else, doing the same things as everybody else did.’
