According to a German newspaper a Ryanair captain evicted 120 passengers from a flight from the Canary Islands to Belgium. The group, described as young people and students, had refused to pay excess baggage charges. It is not made clear, but I assume that they had checked in on-line and then turned up with too much or overweight cabin luggage, which a stewardess demanded they pay extra for. The Spanish police decided that none of the group should be allowed to fly, for the safety of the remaining passengers who took off three hours late. The Belgian Foreign Ministry then put pressure on Ryanair to bring the stranded group home today.
Ryanair likes its passengers to check in on-line, but this invites this sort of abuse of the cabin baggage rules shown here. I’ve seen it myself on easyjet, with passengers having to pay up before they are allowed on board or in one case a bag full of books being emptied out on the floor to be left behind. I know everyone likes to criticise Ryanair and in this instance they seem to have brought the problem down on themselves. If passengers were made to check in at the airport, luggage could be weighed and scrutinised before boarding and any problems sorted out without the other passengers being held up.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I know this has been flagged before, but it bears repeating – every time yet another Ryanair story hits the headlines.
OZ
Simple answer to this. NEVER, NEVER fly Ryanair. I never do.
In this instance, OZ, I don’t blame Ryanair for chucking out 120 stroppy students especially on the advice of the local police. I do blame O’Leary for not foreseeing this problem when he started insisting everyone should check in on-line or pay £40 or whatever it is to do so at the airport.
Saw your comments on MyT yesterday and agreed. Hope the weather and your mood has improved.
Sheona – If Ryanair charge bucket shop prices then they’re going to get bucket shop customers, i.e. students and the rest of the great British, Irish and assorted continental unwashed who vainly expect full-price, mainline airline standards and service for only 50p.
The weather is fine, thank you for asking, but I fear I may be gradually morphing into a male version of Christina 🙂
OZ
I, for one, have no desire to fly Ryanair. O’Leary is a cretin whose stupid mouth tells me all that I need to know about the company. I would rather by £200.00 extra to fly with a more respectable airline, on which I would not be surrounded by, for the lack of an English word which matches my thoughts on the matter, Lumpenpack. (Riff raff and scum come close)OZ, I fear that I am starting to exhibit Christina-like tendencies as well.
I’m sure you’ve all seen this already, but it is still worth posting:
Shame on you all!
It will take years of assiduous effort and hard work to attain such antisocial heights as mine!
Besides stamping vigorously on egalitarianism, you must practise grinding the faces of the peasantry, preferably with hobnailed boots.
You must effortlessly insult the mentally defective, ie all under IQ 125 or so.
You must practise setting your land mines closer in your drives, without blowing yourselves up.
You really need to cease talking to most, if not all, of your relatives, they are by definition generally pretty tedious.
You need to work much harder on aloof sneers at all and sundry and be able to sort the world on the back of an envelope if not a postage stamp.
You will of course never succeed, after all, you are mere males!
I always keep an incumbent to hand just so I have a victim to persecute, so much more satisfactory than stamping on cats!
Apart from that what’s Ryanair?
Christopher – 🙂
Christina – I could hug you, were it not for the likely repercussions.
OZ
Speaking as one of the great British unwashed or Lumpenpack – you’re right, Christopher, no English one-word equivalent – I have flown Ryanair. It’s simply a question of being very careful on the website and unticking all the boxes for extras and not expecting too much. While my father was still alive, I was very glad when Ryanair started a Stansted to Prestwick flight. It made visiting him so much easier. Ryanair also, like that beer, reaches the parts other airlines don’t reach. And I prefer to pay 70 euro for a flight from Marseille to Madrid than 700 euro for an Iberia from Nice to Madrid. But then, I am a Scot.
Lumpenpack has other connotations, Sheona, and I would not use it on you. 🙂
Marseilles to Madrid costs 167 euro, by the way, not 700. 🙂
Sheona – At the risk of how it sounds, back in the sixties travel was glamorous – the jet-set, if you like. Thirty years later, when I was doing most of my serious travelling, it still was, but you were beginning to encounter people, for example, who arrived at the desk before trying to remember which bag their passport was in. Like the septic sitting next to me on a flight to Jo’burg one time who wanted a Johnny Walker Blue Label (£130 per bottle) with coke and ice. Philistine!
OZ
Oh dear, on the subject of low cost airlines, Sheona, I can get awfully stuffy, I’m afraid.
Only done it once, and had they provided me with a seatbelt I maybe would have been more impressed.
OK, yes they suggested I move to another seat which had one, but since the flight was full, I was a little worried.
Minty, dahlink, did you forget to tick the box for the £20.00 seatbelt option?
Apparently so, Christopher. 🙂
I thought it was covered by IATA regs or whatever. It simply didn’t occur to me. 😦
It is, Araminta. You should have sued the pants off them. 😀
Certainly someone should have, Bearsy.
I simply moved seats to one that did have a belt; wimp that I am!
Christopher, Marseille to Madrid costs whatever Ryanair offer, which can be very reasonable if one is not constrained by times and dates. Nice to Madrid is another matter since you have to use Iberia, or had to at the time we were travelling. Perhaps there’s a newer, cheaper alternative.
Good old Ryanair, run of course by the Irish! Fly at your own risk.
Sheona: Lufthansa and Iberia both cost 178 euro, I would be partial to Lufthansa.
But that’s 100 euro extra each. We are poor pensioners, christopher. Ryanair are currently offering a fare of 26.99 euro Marseille to Madrid this Friday. If you want to fly from Paris, you could take advantage of the sale and pay 18.99 to Madrid or 6.00 to Seville, which is one place I would not mind being just now. I can understand you would prefer Lufthansa!
Sheona: I’m simply a uni student. This summer I will go on holiday and had a choice between a low-cost airline, China Eastern, or a higher-rated one, Cathay Pacific. The Cathay Pacific flight was £862.00 (using a proper currency, not the EU sham currency) compared to £612.00 for the cheaper flight. Since the flight will be nearly 15 hours long, I concluded it was worth the extra cost. (San Francisco Hong Kong, later on I will fly from Hong Kong to Shanghai)