Almost 200 passengers on a Ryanair flight to Lanzarote spent the night from Sunday to Monday in Gran Canaria. As one of those travelers told La Voz, the plane left Madrid with more than two hours of delay due to the air traffic controllers' strike and, upon arriving in Lanzarote, they were told "that the airport was already closed." "When we left Madrid, they already knew that we would not arrive on time and, even so, they decided to fly anyway and did not notify us until arrival", denounces this passenger, who affirms that the occupants of the plane were "outraged by the treatment of the company." Many of them spent the night in the terminal and some did not receive "even a ticket for dinner and breakfast to which they were entitled."
"I do not understand that the crew did not tell us upon departure, in the same way that they apologized for the delay, that perhaps we would not reach our destination," she claims. The plane was supposed to leave Madrid at 9:40 p.m. on Sunday; however, "ten minutes before midnight it was still on the runway." "The flight lasts two hours and twenty minutes, they knew that Guacimeta would be closed," emphasizes this passenger, who believes that the company "needed the plane in the morning" in Lanzarote and, for that reason, "preferred" to leave them "an entire night stranded" in Gran Canaria.
According to her account, the commander of the plane informed the travelers that the main reason for the delay was the air traffic controllers' strike, which caused the aircraft that covers the route between Madrid and Lanzarote to accumulate delays throughout the day, in addition to a review by the engineers before departing. The passenger, for her part, affirms that she "understands" that there was a strike, but believes that this "does not justify the company's behavior."
"Laughter" when offering them "to sleep in the terminal"
"It was completely outrageous," says this traveler about Ryanair's attitude. "When we landed in Las Palmas, something we had been warned about in mid-flight, when we thought we would land in Lanzarote, the flight attendant laughed when notifying by loudspeaker that we could sleep in the terminal," she recounts.
According to her explanation, the airline promised to take them from Gran Canaria to Lanzarote at 7 in the morning and gave them the possibility of staying in a hotel, but "they did not offer transportation either to go or return to the airport." "The passengers themselves had to pay for the taxi, because there were no buses, and ask the company for it, without knowing when they were going to return it to us," she explains. "And if you didn't have money, what? Well, according to the girl who attended us, that is not the company's problem," she emphasizes.
According to this passenger's explanation, when the passengers arrived at the Gran Canaria airport, they had to process the night at the hotel, the claims, and everything they were entitled to in a Ryanair office where there was "one girl alone for almost 200 people." "It was already after two in the morning and it took more than an hour to attend to all of us," she points out, emphasizing that "until several passengers who knew the legislation arrived, she did not distribute the dinner and breakfast tickets" to which they were "entitled" nor "the official claim forms."
"She only handed out the company's claim forms, which are useless," she explains. "I'm not a fortune teller," she assures that she replied to another traveler who reproached her for the fact that "her duty" was to "inform travelers of what they are entitled to, how to file a claim, etcetera." "What is not normal is that we only find out about our rights because someone who knows how these things work is traveling on the plane, Ryanair had the obligation to offer us all everything that corresponded to us," she denounces on her part. According to her, "many people" left the counter "without knowing that the claim form they were given was useless" or "without their tickets to be able to eat something after more than 6 hours between airport and airport."
