BUDGET airline Ryanair has come under fire after a 74-year-old woman was forced to sleep on a luggage conveyor belt during a three-day flight delay as snow storms delayed a flight.
Wendy Erskine, 51, from Upper Largo in Fife, had been due to fly back to Edinburgh on Sunday with her elderly mother Edith Steele after a weekend visiting her student son in the Netherlands.
But snow grounded that flight and they had to make a 120-mile trip to Charleroi Airport in Brussels to catch a replacement Ryanair flight, finally arriving back home on Wednesday night.
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Mrs Erskine said that, after boarding a replacement flight on Monday, the passengers were taken off again without explanation and left to fend for themselves in the Belgian airport.
Mrs Erskine and Mrs Steele, who has a number of health problems, claimed they were given little information and no food or water by Ryanair staff.
Mrs Erskine also said anti-terrorism police at Charleroi were heavy-handed and she said they were traumatised by the entire experience.
There was also concern among passengers that the Ryanair staffing crisis played a part in pushing back the departure to Wednesday when other airlines were flying from Brussels to Scotland on Tuesday.
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She said: “I won’t be going back to Charleroi or fly with Ryanair again.
“We were basically left to lie around without any information, pay for our own food and were handed two A4 sheets of paper with details of the next Ryanair flight and told to go online and book it ourselves.
“Someone at the airport said it was our own fault for booking Ryanair. There was nobody we could approach for help at Charleroi and the only staff on duty seemed to be security staff, soldiers and armed police.”
She said it was a similar situation at Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where she claimed there was a lack of Ryanair management available to help. Mrs Erskine said she saw a “vast number of people were left to queue and then re-queue without knowing what was going to happen”.
Mrs Erskine added: “How many plane loads of people were they attempting to shift on from parts of the Netherlands to Belgium?Then there were Ryanair people at the desk but they didn’t know what to do and you were just cast adrift.”
She also claimed anti-terrorism police appeared to be concerned the passengers would become agitated. She said: “There was a line of armed police and at one point they took my phone from me and actually hurt my arm.
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“There were no seats and my mother had to lay on a conveyor belt for luggage. It was not really humane. There was no information, there’s no advice.“We were pretty much told by the police at the airport to keep on the move.“We independently booked a hotel.”
A spokesman for the Dublin-based airline said: “This flight from Eindhoven to Edinburgh was regrettably cancelled due to snowfall in Eindhoven.
“All affected customers were contacted by email and SMS text message and advised of their options – a full refund, a free transfer on to the next available flight, or a free transfer on to an alternative routing.
“These customers were transferred by coach to Brussels Charleroi where they were due to fly to Edinburgh on December 11.
“This flight was subsequently and regrettably cancelled due to snow at Charleroi and customers were advised of their options by email and SMS text message.
“We sincerely apologise for these weather cancellations, which were entirely beyond our control.”
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