PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Ryanair left passengers stranded at 3am – and won’t pay compensation

When I arrived at Nice airport last Sunday at around 7.15pm, tanned and relaxed after a long weekend on the Côte d’Azur with my boyfriend’s family, I had no idea I would spend the next 24 hours trying to get home – and then be denied compensation.

Maybe I should have had an inkling. My flight was booked with Ryanair, the low-cost carrier that was voted the joint worst airline for passenger satisfaction by readers. The survey took place last autumn, when Ryanair cancelled more than 700,000 bookings because of an ongoing dispute with its pilots.

But none of this was front of mind last Sunday evening – until our scheduled flight time, 9.15pm, came and went, as did the rescheduled slots of 11.20pm and 1.59am.

Two hours into the delay, I tweeted Ryanair asking what we should do, as there was no information and no one in the airport to speak for Ryanair. I let the airline know that someone in my party was pregnant. I sent 12 tweets overall, and received no reply.

Airlines are bound by EU law to offer assistance while you wait for a delayed flight, which should include food and drink. As far as I know, Ryanair offered none of this assistance. Some passengers told me they were given €5 Starbucks vouchers from the airport, but by this time Starbucks was closed.

That was the least of our problems. At 2.37am, with a shuttle bus full of passengers waiting on the runway, in view of the plane, boarding passes already scanned, Ryanair cancelled the flight. (The pilot refused to talk to us, leaving the French ground control staff to break the news.)

EU legislation states that airlines must provide accommodation (and transport to and from) if the flight is rebooked for the following day. Any guesses how helpful Ryanair was?

Almost 200 passengers were left to sort out their own accommodation, well after 3am. The people just behind me in the queue booked the last room in the Ibis Budget hotel across the road from the airport, leaving dozens of people to try their luck elsewhere. (Ryanair later told me it offered no help because “hotel accommodation was not available” thanks to a strike by French air traffic control – an odd claim, seeing as I managed to book a room at 3.22am.)

One passenger contacted me via Twitter to say her group of 22 had to sleep on the airport floor. A pregnant woman told me that “due to overexhaustion, lack of proper food and drink as well as abdominal pain”, she ended up in an ambulance to hospital, where she spent the night.

We finally took off at about 4pm on Monday. The plane was dirty (I had an apple core and other waste under my feet) and there were just three bottles of water on board for its 189 capacity. The flight landed in London 20½ hours late, and I got home more than 24 hours after arriving at Nice airport.

To top it all off, Ryanair has refused to pay compensation.

EU261 – a piece of legislation that Ryanair’s boss, Michael O’Leary, has called “ridiculous” – entitles fliers within the EU to compensation if their arrival is three or more hours delayed. The payout is €250 (£218) for a short flight, rising to €600 for

Ryanair’s delay left a pregnant woman in hospital overnight