Ryanair has defended its decision not to offer passengers stuck on its planes for up to 15 hours due to Storm Ashley free bottles of water or any other refreshments because there were “not entitled” to it.
People who found their travel plans up in the air – literally and metaphorically – due to storm Storm Ashley have detailed what they described as their “mental” experiences while flying through the storm.
Alan Duncan was travelling from Ibiza to Dublin on Sunday with the airline and on two separate occasions the pilot attempted to land in Ireland before opting to divert instead to Liverpool. When they touched down Mr Duncan was dismayed to learn passengers would not be disembarking as “border control wouldn’t allow anyone off the plane as it was an EU to EU flight. Instead we were kept on the plane for four hours.”
He noted that there “was no food [or] water, and the toilets were starting to stink. A number of women also suffered panic attacks.”
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Another passenger travelling from the Algarve to Dublin, meanwhile, documented the 15 hours he spent trying to get home at the height of the storm.
“We boarded in Faro at about 9am and disembarked the plane at 11.55pm in Dublin,” Gerald Gallen said. “We made a couple of attempts at landing in Dublin before diverting to Manchester.”
On two more occasions the plane attempted to land in Dublin before ultimately being diverted to Birmingham where it – and the passengers – ”sat on runway for hours”. He said that “at no stage in this 15-hour on-board experience did Ryanair offer or provide so much as a bottle of water to a passenger free of charge”.
He told The Irish Times that the plane “had run out of food, run out of water and even at one stage toilet roll. They did manage to restock some items in Birmingham but I wonder how or why they did not at that stage arrive on the plane with 150 bottles of water for example, or think that they might need more than the extra 10 sandwiches they seemed to put their hands on. They managed to sell every box of Pringles they had and released the catering trolley at each opportunity.”
He said that at 5pm he asked for some water “and was given a bottle and presented with a card machine to pay for it. I asked the member of staff was she charging me for water nine hours after we boarded a flight. She said yes, they had to charge and I stubbornly handed her back the bottle. I ended up buying one about 30 minutes later as I was too thirsty to let my pride get in the way!”
In response to queries a Ryanair spokeswoman said that it apologised “sincerely to all passengers for these delays and diversions, which were caused by tropical Storm Ashley and our obligation to prioritise passenger and aircraft safety”.
Referencing the Faro to Dublin flight that was diverted to the UK, she said “passengers were provided with snacks and refreshments for sale from the in-flight bar service, Passengers were not entitled to free food or drinks on-board and nor are they entitled to ‘compensation’ when these delays and diversions were caused by a tropical storm, which was clearly beyond Ryanair’s control”.
She expressed gratitude to its “operations teams and our crews who worked long hours in extremely difficult circumstances during a tropical storm yesterday to get these passengers back to Dublin, rather than cancelling flights or having them stranded in UK airports”.
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