Ryanair strands passengers three countries away from destination due to high costs

Real World Aviation
#1

A few days ago, Ryanair’s already low reputation took another blip.

A Ryanair flight departed London Standsted bound for Thessaloniki, Greece. At this time, Thessaloniki was covered with snow and experiencing bad weather, and - as this is a rare occurence in Greece and the airport was unprepared - lots of flights were delayed or diverted, mainly to Athens (LGAV) or the nearby Kavala (LGKV). For example, two days ago, I had family members who were planning to fly out of LGTS but had to take the train & then drive to LGKV for their flight.

Not so FR8582. Probably due to higher airport prices at these two airports, they decided to divert. Probably to a good old island or mainland airport somewhere nearby in Greece, right? In fact, they were dumped three countries away in Timisoara, Romania.

The passengers were then not allowed to stay at (i.e. forced out of) the airport and told to take a long bus ride (8+ hours) to Thessaloniki.

The Greek government quickly acted and chartered an Aegean Airlines A320 up to Timisoara to take the stranded passengers back.

Thoughts on this move by Ryanair? I can understand that diverting to Timisoara may have been cheaper, but, having three focus cities in Greece, they had no excuse to divert to one of the other two that were unaffected by weather and under an hour’s flight away. While low cost airlines are excellent for us consumers and here to stay, this can be an unwanted consequence of travelling on them - in rare cases of course.

Let me know what you think below.

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15 Likes
#2

I mean this is crazy that an airline wouldn’t care about their passengers this much. They should have landed in Greece or at least get the passengers out of Romania. Good work by the Greeks to bring the passengers to their intended destination.

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#3

Its rYaNiAr BtW

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#4

The fact the Greek government has to step in and fly the passengers back (on another airline) is a big L for Ryanair. I would be so embarrassed and feeling guilty as should Ryanair. Ryanair hopefully realizes they lost customers in the process and will take steps to prevent this in the future.

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#5

Correct me if I’m wrong, but typically, when a plane diverts they set of for the intended destination later that day once the weather clears…

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#6

Props to the Greek government and Aegean for doing something about the issue!

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#7

Ryanair probably didn’t want to pay for that. Diverting cost money and to continue on, they need to restock food, fuel, etc. which Ryanair didn’t want to do.

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#8

Classic Ryanair

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#9

what kinda airline would do that?

google says: RYANAIR

they are ruining their airline first by extremely hard landings now the strand passengers! thats messed up!

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#10

Agreed - it’s terrible PR. Good move not only to help the passengers, but also strategically from the government - it boosts the airlines already pretty good reputation. It might prompt a few people to fly Aegean to Thessaloniki next time, even despite the cost difference.

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#11

It’s why I don’t fly Ryanair no more unless Its the only Choice. The same thing happened to me a few years back when landing in venice it was really foggy and we ended up circling and diverting. We landed somewhere else in Italy but I don’t remember exactly. They told us there’s nothing they could do and we ended up taking a long car trip back to Venice

1 Like
#12

There’s no need for Ryanair to do this at all. But a lot of what Ryanair get slated for isn’t even a problem at all. This is sad, but a lot of the other ‘bad things’ just aren’t bad at all.

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#13

That is mad! And it it might be your wording, but Ryanair sounds very selfish The way that the word strand is used. It conveys the feeling to me that they have done this purposely.
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#14

As long as people will continue to pay those low prices without asking questions Ryanair won’t change. And as long as the passenger rights won’t improve on that matter, Ryanair won’t change for sure.

It’s always the same. First everyone complains about Ryanair but in aftermath they still continue to fly with them.

To be clear, what Ryanair did in that case here is absolutely wrong, I agree. That’s a terrible „solution“ they offered. But it ain’t the first time and it won’t be the last time as well.

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#15

Well in that sense the “clickbait” in the article is even worse as Ryanair “dumped” them in Romania.

Anyway to me, Ryanair really did strand them. After all, they couldn’t stay in the airport (I believe they were kicked out overnight), and Ryanair did nothing to help them. If it hadn’t been for the Aegean charter, it could’ve turned out quite ugly, or at least uncomfortable, with the bus ride through Romania, Serbia, F.Y.R.O.M. and finally Greece.

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#16

I actually really like the principles of Ryanair from an economic sense. And for young-ish people my age who might not be absolutely full with cash, it’s helpful (or at least for me EasyJet is). I think the most things they get slated for are completely uncalled for, after all, just remember - you can fly, internationally, on a plane, for under 20 Euro! Expecting a luxury experience for that is impossible.

But it’s these incidents like these that just make me think - you don’t always have to take the cheapest option. Get a hotel near the airport. Maybe refund the passengers or partly finance their paid ticket.

Then again, this will all be forgotten in a few weeks. So maybe, in the end, they have won the most from this? Who knows.

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#17

I got it off the title of this topic, but you are right about how bad an airline “dumping” it’s passengers is!

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#18

Excellent point! And Ryanair’s profits have been rising year on year, so I don’t think this “bad reputation” has been that damaging.

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#19

Exactly. From a profit point of view, why worry about reputation when you are consistently filling seats and following all aviation laws?

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#20

Gotta love rYaNAir

1 Like