Anger as 80 young Lourdes volunteers left ‘stranded’ when Ryanair drops flight

Embattled airline branded a ‘disgrace’ after taking hours to assist teens who had spent a week in France helping the old and sick

RYANAIR was last night accused of abandoning about 80 young people who had spent a week volunteering to help the old and sick in Lourdes.

The flight from Biarritz to Dublin was cancelled on Saturday, leaving the volunteers – some of whom were teenagers – stranded at the airport.

The group told the Irish Mail on Sunday last night that they had no idea what to do and even considered catching a ferry home.

They branded Ryanair a ‘disgrace’ online for leaving them without assistance for several hours.

Ryanair eventually agreed to provide hotel accommodation for the group and booked them onto a flight home this morning.

However, prior to this, members of the group told the MoS they did not know how they would get home and even considered hiring a bus to take them to the ferry port at Cherbourg – a gruelling 10-hour journey.

Some of the teenagers took to Twitter to complain about the beleaguered airline.

One said: ‘It is disgraceful how Ryanair abandoned 79 youths in the south of France after volunteering for a week. Find your own way home, they said.’

While another posted: ‘No assistance has been offered to provide food or travel arrangements to us 80 stranded youths, including one pregnant teacher.’

In the hours before finally getting assistance from Ryanair, the group said they could not get any food because the shops and restaurants were closed. Ryanair issued the following statement last night: ‘This flight from Biarritz to Dublin (September 23) was regrettably cancelled after the inbound aircraft was unable to land at Biarritz Airport due to the closure of the runway. Customers were provided with refreshment vouchers and overnight accommodation and will board a replacement flight in the morning. Ryanair sincerely apologised to all customers affected by this cancellation, which was entirely beyond our control.’ The volunteers are members of the Oblate Youth and it is understood that many of them are current or former students of Belvedere College in Dublin. Meanwhile, pilots worldwide have come out in support of their Ryanair colleagues, piling pressure on the airline. The pilots are at the centre of a bitter dispute after the airline cancelled thousands of flights, leaving passengers stranded. Turbulent times could continue at the airline if it is unable to recruit sufficient numbers of pilots to bridge its ongoing staffing crisis. Earlier this week Mr O’Leary disputed claims of a mass exodus, saying that the turnover of pilots at the company this year was less than 5% – which is similar to other years.

He said the company plans to have recruited and trained 600 new pilots by May/June of next year.

However, it was not clear whether this was the typical 600 pilots that the airline annually trains and recruits, or if it’s an additional 600.

Attempts to query this were not answered by Ryanair’s press office.

Two bodies representing pilots have said the exodus of pilots from the budget carrier and the cancellation of flights will continue until it resolves employment conditions. In a full-page advertisement in yesterday’s Irish Times, the president of the Allied Pilots Association, Captain Daniel F Carey, warned the airline that it won’t get out of its current crisis without pilots to fly its planes.

‘Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has apologised for what he calls a “major boo boo” that’s causing 50 flights a day to be cancelled for the next six weeks, standing up to 35,000 customers. The airline says it “messed up in the planning of pilot holidays”, which ought to be one of the simpler tasks that’s required.

‘The airline neglected to mention that many of its pilots have gotten fed up with Mr O’Leary’s shenanigans and are quitting, leaving Ryanair short of pilots.

‘We suggest Mr O’Leary rethink

‘Find your own way home, they said’ ‘Waiting hours for assistance from Ryanair’

his approach, because an airline won’t get very far without its pilots,’ he said.

Irish Air Line Pilots Association president Evan Cullen, said the raft

‘Ryanair pilots toe the line. They’re robots’

of conditions imposed on Ryanair pilots will ultimately lead to staff shortages.

‘To the best of my knowledge, no other airline has the type of employment conditions that Ryanair has.

‘Nearly all airlines offer pilots contracts with the airline, whereas at Ryanair a large percentage don’t have permanent contracts with the airline and instead are employed through pilot recruitment companies. Any airline that is not offering the market rate in terms of pay and conditions is going to suffer a shortage of pilots,’ he said.

This claim elicited the sole response to our queries from Ryanair’s press office: ‘IALPA is an Aer Lingus pilots’ union with a long record of making claims that are factually untrue about Ryanair.’

The chief operations officer from a rival budget airline says the shortage of pilots, is simply because ‘everyone wants to fly now’.

‘In the West, it’s estimated that 37% of people take a flight at least once a year. In China, the airlines there are literally just sucking up European pilots.

‘Then you throw in the likes of Emirates, Qatar and Etihad – these airlines didn’t exist 20 years ago. Once a pilot becomes a captain on Ryanair and they’re out of contract, they can walk into a plush job with any of these carriers.

‘Ryanair pilots have a good reputation. We call them robots. They just do what they’re told very efficiently and never deviate from the line. Exactly what you want from a pilot,’ he added.

At the Ryanair AGM this week, Mr O’Leary said 100 new pilots will be rostered from next week when they have completed relevant procedures.