British police were called to help release passengers on a long delayed Ryanair flight heading for Portugal.
More than 100 adults and children on Valentine’s Day managed to board the already delayed flight in Stansted which was scheduled to fly to Oporto.
But once onboard, it appears they were destined for another delay and found that they were not then allowed back off the aircraft. That wait turned out to be three hours, during which time they had no access to food or water.
Requests and complaints to the cabin crew about food produced no relief.
A number of passengers took to calling the police for help. When the force arrived, passengers were allowed to disembark and continue their wait in the airport terminal.
The final delay was 11 hours before the flight was in the air.
Passenger João Pinheiro posted a video diary of the scenes on You Tube, which has since received nearly 500,000 hits. The video claims the passengers asked for food, water and for the air conditioning to be turned on at 1am, but that this was refused.
After the video was posted, Ryanair apologised but claimed that passengers had been given water on the plane and said the captain had also called the police for assistance.
Ryanair also said that strong winds forced more than 20 airlines to divert into Stansted from Heathrow and Gatwick on February 14, disrupting handling and fuelling operations at the airport. ‘After approximately two hours waiting for fuellers, the captain requested the handling company (Swissport) to allow the passengers into the terminal which was locked,’ the spokesman said.
For its part, Swissport said its staff had come under “extreme pressure dealing with an unprecedented level of flights”. It accepted it should have allowed passengers back into the terminal but had no one available.
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