63 students from the St. Jacques de Compostela school in Dax (Landes) will never forget their school trip to London and especially their return!

Indeed, the Irish low cost airline forgot 63 French schoolboys at London Stansted Airport even if they were at the airport two and a half hours before scheduled departure time. However, at the airport, Ryanair had only opened one desk. And despite teachers’ complaints about long registration time and request to open a dedicated desk for the 63 children, nothing was done.

2 hours later, the 63 students and their seven accompanying adults found themselves stranded at the airport. According to French teachers, Ryanair did not provide any support to the schoolboys. The company only later offered to send bthe children back within four days by splitting the group in four smaller groups! It would appear that Ryanair did not accept the schoolboys because  the plane was already full when the class reached Ryanair’s desk. The supervisors of the group declared:

“We believe that there had been of overbooking on the flight and that there was not enough seats on board.”

An overbooking problem that might cost the Mayor of St. Jacques de Compostela a lot!

Indeed, Ryanair has a different story. According to its spokesman, Daniel de Carvalho, the group of schoolchildren had not appeared  until 40 minutes before flight departure, Ryanair’s recommended time for boarding. The airline said “the flight departed  51 minutes late with 102 passengers and 87 vacancies. As the seats remained empty in their absence, there is no basis for possible compensation.”

Beyond the Story

Ryanair’s business model forces the airline to reduce costs to a maximum. That means that Ryanair planes only have 20 minutes between flights. Ryanair’s crew has to check and clean the airplane then insure registration and boarding. This, might explain why Ryanair was not able to open a second registration desk.

Once more, Ryanair failed to show any respect for its passengers, even when there are underage!