Ryanair customers aboard the Thursday evening flight from Agadir in Morocco to Manchester had to endure disruption from a “drunken and aggressive” passenger, which resulted in a diversion to Faro in Portugal. A replacement aircraft and crew were sourced to get the 177 passengers home. But Ryanair says the UK Civil Aviation Authority would not permit the plane to take off – leaving them stranded overnight on the Algarve.
Ryanair DAC chief executive Eddie Wilson told The Independent: “It’s utter bull**** that people were put into hotels last night.”
Flight RK1265 had departed on schedule from Agadir. But an hour after take-off, as the Boeing 737 was off the southwest coast of Portugal, the captain declared a diversion to Faro so that a disruptive passenger could be offloaded.
After police removed the passenger, the aircraft was refuelled to continue the journey to Manchester. But a technical issue came to light that required the attention of an engineer.
The aircraft is operated by a subsidiary, Ryanair UK, which flies routes that do not serve points in the European Union. It was set up after Brexit to allow flights between the UK and countries outside the EU, such as Morocco and Albania, to continue.
A Ryanair UK engineer was not available in Faro. So the airline’s main operating unit, Ryanair DAC, offered to provide an identical aircraft and crew to fly the 177 passengers home without further delay.
But the CAA refused to give permission, according to Ryanair’s Eddie Wilson: “Here’s the important thing: they could have said ‘yes’. They actually said ‘yes’ earlier that day from a flight from Girona.”
In that incident, a Ryanair UK flight from the Spanish city to London Stansted was replaced at short notice by a Ryanair DAC aircraft flown up from Barcelona to get the passengers home.
“It seems the CAA are more aligned with the disruptive passenger, rather than being aligned with consumers,” Mr Wilson said.
“All 177 people on board – including 32 children and infants – had to stay in a hotel overnight. They’re taking off in an hour to get back to Manchester.
“This is bureaucracy and red tape gone mad. The UK government say that they want their agencies to get rid of this red tape. It seems that we disturbed the CAA person who was in bed at the time because they have no out-of-hours facility for this.
“It’s not a question of cost here because that disruptive passenger, we’re going to sue him too, to pay for all that additional cost. But it’s completely unnecessary.
“It’s not very pleasant to be on an aircraft with a drunken passenger who was hugely disruptive on that flight and quite threatening as well. So you do the right thing: you divert to Faro, you do the right thing by having a spare aircraft available to bring people home on time.
“This is done routinely when there is an unplanned event. It’s a rescue flight. That’s what it’s about. It’s not like you’re trying to do something outside of regulation. It’s a common sense approach. We do the right thing.
“It goes on an identical Ryanair aircraft – same tail, same uniforms, same procedures, same everything – except computer says ‘no’ back at CAA headquarters.
“Maybe the next time they can actually talk to the passengers directly and give the reasons at that point in time, rather than the next day scurrying around looking for a list of excuses.”
A UK Civil Aviation Authority spokesperson said: “The UK CAA plays a key role protecting passengers as well as enabling growth in the UK aviation sector. We encourage UK operators to create strong resilience plans for when planes have to be grounded to minimise the impact on passengers. These plans need to be consistent with the legal framework that applies to UK aviation following EU Exit, which requires UK based companies to have sufficient UK registered aircraft to operate their schedule.
“Ryanair has been well aware of this position for a considerable period of time. Ryanair UK has chosen to operate a flight schedule that requires 18 aircraft, but has only allocated 15 aircraft to its UK registered business to fulfil this schedule.
“Ryanair has prioritised the placement of aircraft within their other EU based business over the UK, leaving UK passengers at a higher risk of disruption.”
Brexit made life for airlines more complicated. In 2020, the Civil Aviation Authority said: “It has been our long-standing position that a UK airline with a significant presence in the UK, such as Ryanair UK does, should not rely heavily on using wet-leased, foreign-registered aircraft to undertake their operations.
“Doing so undermines the competitiveness of the UK aviation industry and the effectiveness of the regulatory regime.”
Ryanair says it will take the CAA to court over the issue.
