'Furious Ryanair passengers hold protest in plane'

Tabnabs

BRUSSELS — More than 100 angry passengers refused to leave a Ryanair flight Wednesday after it was diverted to Belgium, demanding that they be taken home, police and firefighters said.

The passengers, mostly French tourists who were supposed to land near Paris after returning from holidays in Morocco, sat in a dark cabin in protest hours after even the pilot and crew had left the plane at the Liege airport in southern Belgium.

Reda Yahiyaoui, a business owner who was travelling with his wife, a two-month-old baby and a three-year-old, said the passengers had no water and the toilets in the plane were locked.

"The pilot left and he even left the cockpit door open," he said.

"The passengers in retaliation to the company (Ryanair) refuse to come out," an airport police official told AFP by telephone. They were offered one of the airport's transit rooms to wait in, but refused, he added.

A firefighter said the airport was trying to organise buses to take the passengers back to France.

"I have proposed that they come off the plane because they are in the dark here," the firefighter said.

Passengers on the plane told AFP that the flight had left Fes, Morocco, three hours late at 7:15 pm local time on Tuesday but had been unable to land in Beauvais, France, because the airport there had closed.

The plane landed in Liege at around 11:30 pm and passengers were still inside it at 3:30 am the next morning.

"This is unacceptable," Mylene Netange, who runs a network on social responsibility for business leaders, told AFP.

"The pilot and crew are no longer here. They left us here," she said.

Reda Yahiyaoui, a business owner who was travelling with his wife, a two-month-old baby and a three-year-old, said the passengers had no water and the toilets in the plane were locked.

"The pilot left and he even left the cockpit door open," he said.

A Ryanair spokesperson was not immediately reachable for comment.

source

:eek:

smokie2008

Gotta love the French, take no ****e from anyone.

new_home

I am shocked that they were left in the dark for so many hours!! Ryanair is just terrible!

View Profile

What did the passengers expect. Beauvais closes at midnight so the aircraft couldnt land there. The Captain chose a suitable alternate where buses would have been organised to take all the passengers back to Beauvais or Paris city centre.
Refusing to get off the plane isnt going to change that. Its a matter for the police at that stage. Crew were right to leave.

AlekSmart

Passengers on the plane told AFP that the flight had left Fes, Morocco, three hours late at 7:15 pm local time on Tuesday but had been unable to land in Beauvais, France, because the airport there had closed.

Mind you,the French authorities themselves might have more than a minor role in this situation....."The Airport had Closed "....sounds very Irish to me.

I`d be interested in hearing what communications took place between Ryanair Ops and Aeroport Beauvais regarding the delayed arrival.

There is always the possibility that other isues are at play within the French system at present.....Firefighters,Security,Ground Staff etc etc ...?

Zyox

View Profile wrote: »

What did the passengers expect. Beauvais closes at midnight so the aircraft couldnt land there. The Captain chose a suitable alternate where buses would have been organised to take all the passengers back to Beauvais or Paris city centre.
Refusing to get off the plane isnt going to change that. Its a matter for the police at that stage. Crew were right to leave.

Dead right.
Very childish and stupid to sit there and go "no! fly us there!". Very simple matter of Beauvais closing at the same time it does every day and the crew doing their best. These things are going to happen in air travel and just because it's happening to you doesn't make it any different. I'm with the crew.

zuroph

of course the crew left, its not their problem, and Ryanair arent gonna pay them the extra hours. They flew them where they could and arranged transfers.

Zyox

I'm only after seeing this here:

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said in a statement: 'Due to the weather related (fog) closure of Paris Beauvais Airport on 16th Nov four Ryanair flights were forced to divert to Liege.

In that case the reaction of the passengers was even more utterly stupid. I thought it was just because the airport closed for the night which would merit *some* frustration. But not this. French havin' a wee strike again eh.

bladeruner

Beauvais closes early , this has always been the case.
But most other airlines would have diverted to weather permitting Charles de Gaulle or Orly.

Ryanair refuse to fly to De Gaulle though .
Bet most passengers would have been delighted to get off at CDG

Dacian

I think we are seeing the usual media outrage at work here. I wonder waht th facts are.

BVA closed due fog, so the diversion was not FR fault.
Why chose Liege when other airports closer to BVA? Easier for FR ops?
Did FR offer the pax a bus transfer? What option were pax offered by FR?

Regardless of the pax behaviour (irrational or not) is it not a serious breech of regs to have pax on an aircraft with no crew?


I read the story and it sounded as if FR told them to disembark, they refused and it was the airport who arranges the buses.

magneticimpulse

typical French!!! Didnt see them protesting when they got into the World Cup by cheating

Tabnabs

Another interesting piece from a passenger has been added to later reports.

"The plane didn't land in Beauvais but in Liege without warning us. Consequently, we refused to leave the plane," she said.

source
Surely they were told of the diversion before landing?

Dyflin

Dyflin wrote: »

Another interesting piece from a passenger has been added to later reports.


source
Surely they were told of the diversion before landing?

Flight the other week with a bunch of french people, they didn't seem too inclined to listen to any of the announcements :rolleyes:
Or sit in their correct seats either

donkey balls

A mate of mine was flying the other day and he had to divert to one of the two alternate airports must ask him was he flying that day.;)

Cessna_Pilot

Dyflin wrote: »

Another interesting piece from a passenger has been added to later reports.


source
Surely they were told of the diversion before landing?

Yup they would have been advised both in French and English.

Foggy43

View Profile wrote: »

Refusing to get off the plane isnt going to change that. Its a matter for the police at that stage. Crew were right to leave.

Ok! Not the normal end to a flight but are you sure that is correct for the crew to leave the passengers behind? Ok the rules may vary from airline to airline but from experience the crew are always last off. They are there before boarding and during disembarking in case a emergency situation occurred. I must have a look at the Flight Crew Manual sometime.

pclancy

I fully support the crew in diverting for whatever reasons they had but the issues with the passengers not being looked after ARE the duty of the airline and airport imo, regardless of where you fly to.

Are the stories of the airplane being "dark" true? If so there's a serious health and safety issue here. I cannot believe the crew would totally power down the aircraft and leave it cold and dark with pax on board, even if they decided to leave it in the hands of the police etc, surely they didnt actually power everything down? Do Ryanair use ground power or their own APUs? With no lighting or aircon left on you're opening yourself up to a lot of legal accusations arising from your duty of care to your passengers.

Su Campu

Foggy43 wrote: »

Ok! Not the normal end to a flight but are you sure that is correct for the crew to leave the passengers behind? Ok the rules may vary from airline to airline but from experience the crew are always last off. They are there before boarding and during disembarking in case a emergency situation occurred. I must have a look at the Flight Crew Manual sometime.

There was no emergency. The passengers were diverted, and were to be bussed the rest of the way, as happens often, without this sort of anarchy. The passengers refused to deplane, so there was not a lot the crew could do. They did nothing wrong.

pclancy wrote: »

I fully support the crew in diverting for whatever reasons they had but the issues with the passengers not being looked after ARE the duty of the airline and airport imo, regardless of where you fly to.

Are the stories of the airplane being "dark" true? If so there's a serious health and safety issue here. I cannot believe the crew would totally power down the aircraft and leave it cold and dark with pax on board, even if they decided to leave it in the hands of the police etc, surely they didnt actually power everything down? Do Ryanair use ground power or their own APUs? With no lighting or aircon left on you're opening yourself up to a lot of legal accusations arising from your duty of care to your passengers.

If it was so bad then the passengers could have left the plane at any time. Again, they decided to stay themselves, so tough shít.

Incidentally, what's the RVR limit for Ryanair pilots? According to the METARs it didn't get below 550m. I assume that's below limits?

[FONT=Monospace,Courier]LFOB 162330Z AUTO 13006KT 0200NDV R30/0700N R12/0600V1000N FG FEW001 04/04 Q1017[/FONT]

[FONT=Monospace,Courier]LFOB 162300Z AUTO 13004KT 100V160 0150NDV R30/0600N R12/0550N FG FEW001 04/04 Q1017[/FONT]

[FONT=Monospace,Courier]LFOB 162230Z AUTO VRB03KT 0150NDV R30/0550N R12/0550N FG NSC 04/04 Q1018[/FONT]

[FONT=Monospace,Courier]LFOB 162200Z AUTO 10005KT 0150NDV R30/0600N R12/0600N FG NSC 04/04 Q1018[/FONT]

magneticimpulse

Im just sick of French protesting...its like a babies snooter falling out and they all start to winge and cry. When will France as a nation grow up? You dont see me protesting when my Ryanair flight to Portugal was canceled due to the numerous French Strikes in September and October because the French Air Traffic Controllers were on strike??? For what? Because they didnt accept the retirement age going from 60 to 62.

Seriously the nation needs a kick up the back side.

Victor

Would this have been because Ryanair didn't spend the money for the navigation equipment to land in foggy conditions?

In fairness, it wasn't just a diversion to another airport, it was a diversion to another country. And they would likely then be dumped in Beauvais in the middle of the night, with no transport. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Route+de+l%27A%C3%A9roport&hl=en&geocode=FRvABAMdW1ZTAA%3BFXqv8gIdMz0gAA&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=16&sll=50.643297,5.463917&sspn=0.010165,0.027874&ie=UTF8&ll=49.908787,3.55957&spn=10.574949,28.54248&z=6

"Oh, we're not going to Dublin tonight, we'll drop you in Manchester."

testicle

Dacian wrote: »

BVA closed due fog, so the diversion was not FR fault.
Why chose Liege when other airports closer to BVA? Easier for FR ops?

Whatever it was, it wasn't because Liege was easier for Ryanair ops, because it isn't a Ryanair airport. Why didn't it divert to Charleroi? Charleroi is between Beauvais & Liege. Were the other airports in Paris closed? How about Brussels? Brussels is nearer to Paris than Liege!

N7777G

Strange that they didn't divert to Charleroi as it is a Ryanair base and it is certainly closer to Beauvias than Liege.

donkey balls

Victor wrote: »

Would this have been because Ryanair didn't spend the money for the navigation equipment to land in foggy conditions?

In fairness, it wasn't just a diversion to another airport, it was a diversion to another country. And they would likely then be dumped in Beauvais in the middle of the night, with no transport. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Route+de+l%27A%C3%A9roport&hl=en&geocode=FRvABAMdW1ZTAA%3BFXqv8gIdMz0gAA&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=16&sll=50.643297,5.463917&sspn=0.010165,0.027874&ie=UTF8&ll=49.908787,3.55957&spn=10.574949,28.54248&z=6

"Oh, we're not going to Dublin tonight, we'll drop you in Manchester."

I asked a mate of mine what sort of nav aid to they have on the 738 afaik he said cat 3A even with that in place on the acft, The airport would also need to have the nav aid in place bit like lining up for an ILS approach when the airport does not have one.

McNulty737

Victor wrote: »

Would this have been because Ryanair didn't spend the money for the navigation equipment to land in foggy conditions?

No.

Foggy43

It does appear it would be a serious breach of company SOP's/Regulations to leave the passengers behind on the aircraft if this actually happened.

I like others doubt this happened. I did a bit on surfing on this and the 'leaving the flight deck door open' report, people cannot believe. Also if any of you read todays Irish Independent this story is there but not as dramatic as AFB.

As others have said there is always two sides to every story.

I did see MOL on the sixone news with his charity moustache. What charity is it for?

scudzilla

Reda Yahiyaoui, a business owner who was travelling with his wife, a two-month-old baby and a three-year-old, said the passengers had no water and the toilets in the plane were locked.

"The pilot left and he even left the cockpit door open," he said.

A Ryanair spokesperson was not immediately reachable for comment.


Do you need keys to start a 737 or is it just a few buttons ;) :rolleyes:

StereoLove

Dyflin wrote: »

source

:eek:

Fair play to them. Ryanair are hopeless anyway

bladeruner

The 737-800 is Cat3A unless affected by a technical problem but Beauvais is Cat1 on r/w 30 and a VOR onto r/w12.

But as i said earlier Beauvais closes early and this was most likely the reason for the diversion.

Beauvais routinely gets fogged out for a whole week every year .
I once diverted to Charleroi as we couldnt get into Beauvais but we did tell the pax.

The method Ryanair use for choosing normal ops diversion airfields is
(1) regular ryanair destinations
(2) alternates airports for the regular destinations
(3) any other airports

pclancy

scudzilla wrote: »

Do you need keys to start a 737 or is it just a few buttons ;) :rolleyes:

Once the doors are open there's no more need for keys Just work through the checklists and start her up! http://www.b737.org.uk/nnp.htm#Checklists

You might need some help with all the groundgear/fuel/baggage/doors/etc but hey it would be dooable.

Imagine the headlines..."annoyed PAX fly themselves home after crew leave cockpit unlocked"

Cessna_Pilot

pclancy wrote: »

I fully support the crew in diverting for whatever reasons they had but the issues with the passengers not being looked after ARE the duty of the airline and airport imo, regardless of where you fly to.

Are the stories of the airplane being "dark" true? If so there's a serious health and safety issue here. I cannot believe the crew would totally power down the aircraft and leave it cold and dark with pax on board, even if they decided to leave it in the hands of the police etc, surely they didnt actually power everything down? Do Ryanair use ground power or their own APUs? With no lighting or aircon left on you're opening yourself up to a lot of legal accusations arising from your duty of care to your passengers.

OK. So by your reasoning they should have left maybe the APU running? Or maybe the GPU. So will the police know what to do in the case of an APU or GPU fire? Of course not.
Pax should have been removed my the Police, and any refusing to do so should have been physically removed for causing nonsensical breach of the peace!
It's a sticky situation for any flight/attendant crew to be put in but they get my thumbs up.

Cessna_Pilot

Victor wrote: »

Would this have been because Ryanair didn't spend the money for the navigation equipment to land in foggy conditions?


"Oh, we're not going to Dublin tonight, we'll drop you in Manchester."

First point, answer to that is a definitive NO!

Secondly, if weather or technical reasons caused the pilots to deem it necessary to divert to Manchester, I'd rather get there safely than arrive in Dublin in a ball of fire.

testicle

I note Ryanair now use a second airport in Paris - Vatry - to the east of the city. In true Ryanair style, they've called it Disney, even though it's ~ 200km from Disneyland.

Tora Bora

Pity the pilot didn't leave the keys in the ignition :D

bladeruner

it could have been a very expensive night for FR if those pax had kicked in a few screens in the open cockpit.
how funny and dangerous would it have been if some microsoft flight sim fan had been on board and decided to drive the aircraft back to paris on the motorway !!!

View Profile

Would this have been because Ryanair didn't spend the money for the navigation equipment to land in foggy conditions?

Ryanair's aircraft and crew are all CAT3a qualified. Its the airport's facilities that dictate whether they can land(autoland) there. We couldnt land in Beauvais that night as well due to fog so we autolanded into Lille. There was fog all over Northern France but Lille has CAT3A facilities.
Beauvais has CAT1 ILS to both of its runways but it has poxy lighting facilities.
700m viz was required to land there, it was reported at about 550m.

nag

I think it needs to be pointed out that they couldn't land because the airport was closed, not because of the runway/aircraft/aircrew minima. Why they chose to land at Liege could have been because their desired alternate might have also been closed and as a result, it was probably most operationally and/or cost effective for FR to use Liege. It's not actually that much further than diverting to Cork when intending to land at Dublin. Yes of course it's a bit of a pisser but it happens and not just to FR either.

Victor

View Profile wrote: »

Ryanair's aircraft and crew are all CAT3a qualified. Its the airport's facilities that dictate whether they can land(autoland) there. We couldnt land in Beauvais that night as well due to fog so we autolanded into Lille. There was fog all over Northern France but Lille has CAT3A facilities.
Beauvais has CAT1 ILS to both of its runways but it has poxy lighting facilities.
700m viz was required to land there, it was reported at about 550m.

So its because Ryanair fly to cheapskate airports* that have minimal equipment and close early?



* Perfectly safe, but not capable of dealing with certain weather conditions.

x in the city

Dyflin wrote: »

source

:eek:

doesnt help that the french are tight as ducks cracks

Cessna_Pilot

Victor wrote: »

So its because Ryanair fly to cheapskate airports* that have minimal equipment and close early?



* Perfectly safe, but not capable of dealing with certain weather conditions.

Yes perfectly safe for the conditions they cater for.

BrianD

Cessna_Pilot wrote: »

Yes perfectly safe for the conditions they cater for.

And what people want to pay for. The market dictates. People want cheap flights but are still unable to get over the "luxury" that air travel was depicted as years ago.

pclancy

There's no question imo that the crew did the right thing to land the aircraft where they did.

737-800s as pointed out earlier in the thread, are perfectly capable of landing pretty much anywhere they want as long as the crew and airport are also able, in this case its the airport that has "failed".

What I'm still thinking about are the reports about people being left in a cold and dark aircraft but I'm swung on the idea that that's overblown press dribble by now.

Lapin

View Profile wrote: »

Crew were right to leave.

How did they get home

View Profile

They may have exceeded their duty time. Could have stayed in a local hotel and flown the aircraft back in the morning.

Steyr

nag wrote: »

I think it needs to be pointed out that they couldn't land because the airport was closed, not because of the runway/aircraft/aircrew minima..

Its that Airport not a 24Hour Operation?? FR doesnt Operate beyond 12 or 1am anyway am I right?

Maldjd23

I have to admit i have always found Ryanair a strange one. On one hand the flights are cheap and they specify no frills. So when people complain over lack of food/drinks and general i suppose perks and comfort i always think these people should know what to expect and if Ryanair disgusts them so much simply choose an alternative airliner. That said stories like the OP has supplied and many others makes me wonder how they get away with such behaviour...Bizarre...Surely if they are out of line the relevant authorities should clamp down?..The way i see it is...Its Ryanair..Expect them to get you from A to B and nothing more...Simple as...

Victor

Maldjd23 wrote: »

Expect them to get you from A to B and nothing more...Simple as...

But these people ended up in C.

SkepticOne

Question for pilots: is it the case that the Ryannair crew on that flight would not have had the knowledge to land at airports with electronic facilities for landing in fog?

View Profile

Its that Airport not a 24Hour Operation?? FR doesnt Operate beyond 12 or 1am anyway am I right?

No Beauvais has a jet ban after midnight local time. If you ask for start up after midnight you'll be refused.

But these people ended up in C.

Yeah they landed in C but would have been bused back to B. Therefore Ryanair fulfilling their contractual obligations.

Question for pilots: is it the case that the Ryannair crew on that flight would not have had the knowledge to land at airports with electronic facilities for landing in fog?

In this case the airport was closed anyway(night curfew) so they were not allowed to land.
If it had been due to fog then the limiting factor isnt the pilots qualifications (knowledge as you put it) but the airports lighting and navigation facilities. Most of Northern France and Belgium was covered in fog so the crew diverted to a suitable airport with CAT3A certification.

nag

View Profile wrote: »

If it had been due to fog then the limiting factor isnt the pilots qualifications (knowledge as you put it) but the airports lighting and navigation facilities.

Why would it not be the pilots qualifications? If they haven't received CAT3C training, then they wouldn't be able to land there. Probably an unlikely situation but it could happen I guess.

Similarly, if the aircraft did not have the required equipment for an approach to a CAT3C runway, then that could have been the limiting factor.

Lapin

Lapin wrote: »

How did they (flight crew) get home

View Profile wrote: »

They may have exceeded their duty time. Could have stayed in a local hotel and flown the aircraft back in the morning.

So could they not have explained this to the passengers and offer them a lift back in the morning instead of buggering off and leaving them high and dry ?

zuroph

Lapin wrote: »

So could they not have explained this to the passengers and offer them a lift back in the morning instead of buggering off and leaving them high and dry ?

do you know it wasnt?