Ryanair has defended its decision not to offer passengers stranded on its planes for up to 15 hours due to storm Ashley free bottles of water or any other refreshments because they were “not entitled” to it, The Irish Times reports.
People whose travel plans were left up in the air, literally and metaphorically, because of Storm Ashley, have detailed what they described as some traumatic experiences while flying through the storm.
Alan Duncan was flying last Sunday from Ibiza to Dublin with the airline and on two separate occasions the pilot attempted to land in Ireland before opting to divert to Liverpool. When they landed, Duncan was dismayed to learn that the passengers would not disembark because “border control would not allow anyone off the plane”: “Instead, we were kept on the plane for four hours“, publishes the Irish media.
He noted that “there was no food or water and the toilets started to smell bad. Several women also suffered panic attacks”.
15 hours locked in a plane
In the meantime, another passenger who was traveling from the Algarve to Dublin also with Ryanair documented the 15 hours he spent trying to get home at the height of the storm.
“We boarded in Faro around 9 a.m. and disembarked from the plane at 11:55 p.m. in Dublin,” said Gerald Gallen. “We made a couple of attempts to land in Dublin before diverting to Manchester.” On two further occasions, the plane attempted to land in Dublin before being diverted to Birmingham, where passengers “remained on the tarmac for hours.”
The complainant told The Irish Times that “at no time during these 15 hours on board did Ryanair provided even a bottle of water to any passenger free of charge.” The plane “ran out of food, water and even, at one point, toilet paper. They managed to replenish some items in Birmingham, but I wonder how or why they didn’t at that point get to the plane with 150 bottles of water, for example, or think they might need more than the 10 extra sandwiches they apparently got. They managed to sell every box of Pringles they had and freed up the catering trolley at every opportunity.”
He says that at five o’clock in the afternoon he asked for some water: “And they gave me a bottle and showed me a POS to pay for it. I asked the clerk if I was being charged for water nine hours after boarding a flight. She said yes, they had to charge me and I gave her back the bottle. I ended up buying one about 30 minutes later because I was too thirsty to let my pride stop me from doing so.”
In response to this situation, a Ryanair spokeswoman said it was “sincerely apologizing to all passengers for these delays and diversions, which were caused by Tropical Storm Ashley” and for its “obligation to prioritize passenger and aircraft safety.”
Referring to the refusal to offer food and drink in the face of delays of this magnitude inside an aircraft, it said that “passengers were provided with snacks and refreshments for sale at the in-flight bar service. Passengers were not entitled to free food or drink on board and neither are they entitled to compensation when these delays and diversions were caused by a tropical storm, which was clearly beyond Ryanair’s control.”
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.