No-one, it appears, warned the French of the airline's uncompromising reputation.Heh!
More than 100 passengers staged a sit-in in one of the company's airliners on Tuesday night after their flight, which had been destined for Beauvais in northern France, was diverted to Belgium.
The angry customers, mostly French tourists on their way home from holidays in Morocco, refused to leave the aircraft after it landed in Liege at 11.30pm and spent four hours in their seats in protest.It wasn’t just the abrupt termination of their flight that aggravated them, though:
Having already been agitated at taking off in Fez three hours late, the passengers on flight FR5222 were not in the most understanding of moods and demanded to be flown the rest of the way.Unfortunately, RyanAir then deployed the tactics that usually work for acquiescent Brits:
The pilots and cabin crew stayed onboard the jet for an hour, trying to convince the frustrated band of men, women and children to disembark. The airport authorities also offered the passengers food and drink in a departures lounge, and it was made clear to them that the coach journey would be free.How very good of them!
But realising they were not making any progress, the crew eventually decided to leave the airliner themselves – and, according to the passenger Reda Yahiyaoui, locked the lavatories as they went.Naturally, they fall back on the ‘Ooooh, we were scared that these people we’d jerked around so much might do something violent!’ approach:
A spokesman for Ryanair said that the crew had only left after the passengers became "disruptive". Christian Delcourt, a spokesman for the Liege airport, said that some of them were "very aggressive, very rude," adding: "It was a very tense situation."Well, they’d paid for a flight, and they expected to get one. It’s really no wonder they were a ‘bit tense’, isn’t it?
More disgruntled RyanAir passengers; must be a day ending in ‘Y’.
The passengers can fuck off, frankly. The flight was diverted due to the airport being closed due to fog, after a 3-hour delay in taking off. This sucks, but:
ReplyDeletea) Shit happens
b) Don't fly Ryanair if you have kids. There's a reason it's so cheap. They can't just pitch up at any airport and land there because they only have agreements with shitty out-of-the-way airports like Beauvais and, it would seem, Liege.
Then, the airline agrees to provide food and drink and a coach to take them onto their destination. Less than ideal, but airlines that charge so little are simply not going to magic up another flight to take the passengers onwards.
Finally, the crew spend an hour trying to convince the passengers to disembark. After this, they disembark and lock the toilets, which is irrelevant since the passengers are only on this plance now through choice anyway, and there are toilets in the airport.
If you want to do a sit-in protest, you can't expect to be able to have a piss and can of stella while you do so.
Good on Ryanair, seems they behaved reasonably with circumstances beyond their control (fog) to deal with, and then stood up to unreasonable passengers.
Well done, the French. I've always had a soft spot for them.
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as flights for 50p.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc
"Don't fly Ryanair if you have kids. There's a reason it's so cheap."
ReplyDeleteYou do, indeed, get the service you paid for. This must have come as a massive shock to the French, however.
We're lucky, I suppose, they weren't a bunch of farmers, or they might have set fire to the aircraft!
Sitting in an airplane for 4 hours to avoid a 3 1/2 hour coach journey ?
ReplyDeleteThose canny French !
Stop Trolling Timdog, you might think the sun shines out of the 737's gas turbine generator, but many more cultured and educated people, like the French for instance, don't. They paid money in good faith and they expected the service provider to provide it, unlike a lot of U.K. citizens, who like you, like to talk tough but but cant even fart when it comes to being vociferous, they don't take to being ripped off, fog or no fog, but in post nu- labour rip off Britain I suppose Ryan Air is a good business model.
ReplyDelete