Ryanair refusal forces 47 teen students to make 22-hour trek
The Mervue United players
Wednesday August 08 2007
WHAT should have been a 40-minute flight for 47 students ended up in a marathon 22-hour bus and ferry journey as they desperately tried to get home.
The group of teenagers were left stranded in London after they claimed that Ryanair staff would not let them board their flight home because they were just two minutes late.
Yesterday, tired and a bit cranky, the 47 students finally made it back to Galway.
The soccer players, aged between 12 and 16, made it home after a 460km drive across England, an early-morning ferry back to Dublin and a three-hour coach trip back to Galway.
And organisers of the trip say the missed flight cost them over €3,700 in coach hire, food and the ferry home.
Vice-president of Mervue United George Guest said club officials would be meeting in the coming days to decide what action, if any, to take against the airline.
The group of soccer players were attending the Allborg Youth Games in Denmark for the last week, where they won a number of medals. They flew out Dublin-Stansted-Aarhus with Ryanair.
They were due to travel home from Denmark to Dublin with the low-cost airline but a technical fault at Aarhus airport on Monday morning delayed them for over five hours.
Flight
When they arrived in Stansted Airport for their connecting flight back to Dublin, they were told they were too late to board the plane.
The group claimed that Ryanair offered to put them on standby if they paid €50 a head, but organisers couldn't allow the young men travel back to Ireland in small groups without adult supervision.
The next available flight for the group was on Thursday, but it was from the East Midlands Airport and the players would have had to make their own way there and meet their own expenses.
"You couldn't let the kids off on their own," Mr Guest said yesterday.
"Ryanair said if we could find the internet we could see about getting flights home for a penny.
"The pilot was helpful - he rang London on his own mobile to tip them off that we'd be late."
Club president Peter Long said the epic journey from London cost about €3,700 - €2,200 to hire a coach to take the group to Holyhead, another €680 for the ferry home and some €880 in food. The bills were paid out of the organiser's pockets, and a fundraising event would probably be held to try to pay them back.
"We left at 5am on Monday, getting home at 2.30pm today. We're pissed off with Ryanair - they didn't want to accommodate us. Fair enough if it was adults, but it was 47 kids," Mr Long said.
Wrecked
"Last night was the quietest night on the trip, they were so wrecked. Most parents were expecting them home yesterday [Monday], so we had to use our mobiles and ran out of credit.
"They [Ryanair] gave us a voucher for 35 kroner, which was enough to buy a bag of chips.
"To get on standby, they wanted us to pay €50 a head.
"The lads just wanted to get home - some have never been on a plane or a boat before.
"We'll have to see what happens now and what Ryanair have to say."
Coach Donal Devery said that each group member paid €450 for their flights and that the airline's attitude was not acceptable.
"We were at the check-in desk in time for the 5.10pm flight [from Stansted]," he said. "It's the attitude that kills me: 'You can get a flight at €50 a head, and if you don't like it you can get a bus'."
Player Ciaran O'Donnell said that he was "tired", while Eric Holland declared: "I'm dying to get home to my own bed."
Paul Scally added: "We're all-Ireland champions, and we're treated like this by Ryanair, and it's sh..ty."
The low-cost airline has lost out on future business from the young players. Asked if they would travel with Ryanair again, there was a resounding "No" from all of them.
The airline said last night that it was "unfortunate" that the Danish leg of the trip was delayed by five hours, but added that it was a point-to-point airline and thus not responsible for missed connecting flights.
- Paul Melia
