Sports team hit by Ryanair flight cancellations

A SPORTS team from Cardiff were left in limbo after budget airline Ryanair cancelled their flights.

Cardiff City Korfball Club had battled all season to qualify for the first round of the Korfball Europa Cup in Slovakia.

They were due to fly at the end of the week but received an email from their airline while training.

“We were meant to be flying out in the early hours of Friday morning and we found out Monday evening during training that our flights were cancelled,” said club chairman James Wilcox, 24.

“It was just a generic email, a standard one. It didn’t say if it applied to all of us or our flight.

“It said ‘click on this link to rebook your flights’ and it just said the site was down for scheduled maintenance.

“Also the email was sent just 20 minutes before the call centre closed.”

The Dublin-based carrier is shelving up to 50 flights daily over the next six weeks due to the over-allocation of pilots’ holidays during a relatively busy period.

It faces a compensation bill of up to €20m (£17.7m) for the “mess” which has left many passengers stranded, boss Michael O’Leary said.

When the club finally got through to Ryanair they were unable to get a guarantee of compensation.

“I finally did get through to them on the phone after 15 minutes of waiting. It transpired that nine of us were affected on the flights back,” said James.

“They said we would get a refund but did not confirm if we would be paid compensation while we were stranded in Slovakia. It was not very helpful.

“We had to complete a form and provide evidence.

“We have managed to sort it so we are flying back from Vienna (which is near the Slovakia border).

“We were supposed to be preparing for a major tournament and it has been very stressful.

“It looked like we would not be able to go and they were not giving us our options.

“People have paid a lot of money and it was a lot of people’s first tournaments abroad.”

A spokesman for Ryanair said: “This flight from Bratislava to London Stansted (September 25) was regrettably cancelled and the customer was advised of his options by both email and SMS text message on September 18.

“This customer applied for a refund on September 19 which is currently being processed. 75% of the 315,000 affected customers have already taken another flight or refund. Ryanair again apologised to all customers affected by these cancellations.”