Nerea Garmendia arrived in Bilbao with her 18-month-old son, Unax, intending to travel home to San Sebastián. After her flight from Madrid was delayed by about an hour, she missed the bus she had booked. Although the next bus had empty seats, Avanza refused to let them board, leaving her to pay €188 for a taxi.
Deia, a Basque newspaper, reported that Garmendia had bought tickets in advance for an earlier bus. When she tried to board the next one to Donostia, San Sebastián, she saw there were still seats available.
Garmendia stayed calm during the flight delay. She said, "Unax, who is a saint, behaved super well." The problem came at the bus terminal: every ticket for the San Sebastián route had already been sold. She waited by the bus, hoping some passengers might miss it because of flight delays, as she had.
That hope went nowhere. Seats remained empty, but Avanza, the bus company, refused to let her and her child board. "If there are empty seats, those of us waiting here should be able to take them, right? Well, no," she told Deia. The staff would not budge, so she had no choice but to call a taxi for the long, expensive ride home. Deia reported that Avanza had made no public comment about the refusal. No refund or compensation had been announced, and there was no word of changes to its boarding rules.
Garmendia did not hide her anger. "What bothers me most is that, seeing I was with a minor and knowing there were empty seats, they had no qualms about leaving us behind," she said, calling out Avanza directly. She added, "If I had been alone, I wouldn’t mind, but I have a baby. I arrived two hours late to the nursery."
This was not her first run-in with strict bus rules. Garmendia recalled that Avanza had promised to address the problem by allowing waiting passengers to take empty seats if other ticket holders did not show up. "They said they would implement solutions and allow seats not to remain empty if there were passengers waiting, but that has not happened," she said.
Her story is not unique. Spanish transport systems often stick to rigid ticketing rules, and staff rarely bend them. Travelers are left stranded. Deia has also reported similar problems during severe weather in Catalonia. A missed bus or a closed route can quickly turn into a crisis.
For families and vulnerable travelers, the gap between company policy and practical help can be wide. When a company refuses to adapt, the result can break trust. Passengers continue to bear the cost when operators such as Avanza fail to address these problems.
