While Ryanair services are quite efficient and generally above reproach when everything is in line, one of our readers, who we’ll refer to as Jane, recently encountered a distressing situation that suggests otherwise. The dispute over who’s responsible is still not resolved.
Jane’s tale begins on a cheerful note explaining that her husband ventured on a cycling holiday to France. However, disaster struck when he was involved in an accident, resulting in his hospitalisation. He sustained injuries including a fractured collarbone, scapula, and five ribs.
Jane embarked on a journey to France to escort her husband back. Their journey was organised by Jane’s travel insurance provider, with the most accessible airport providing a direct flight being in Biarritz. Jane agreed to fly with Ryanair from Biarritz to Dublin. This decision was made with the reassurance that comprehensive assistance would be provided throughout the journey, a promise given by the doctors at the hospital and seconded by the insurance company.
Despite her husband’s inability to walk more than a few steps without experiencing severe pain, and a standing arrangement for consistent wheelchair support, their travel experience was far from agreeable. As per Jane’s account, they arrived at the airport via a medical taxi, only to find no medical help waiting for them.
Their travel insurer advised them against an online check-in, stating that Ryanair would allot them appropriate seats—with an additional for comfort—to prevent any pressure against her injured husband. This commitment fell short as well.
Instead of a supportive experience, the pair were met with an unplanned expense of €200 for airport check-in, bag check-in, an extra fee for ‘preferential seating’. Despite pleading her case, Jane receives no sympathy from the agent who insisted on receiving the payment before check-in. This payment was initially covered by the insurer. Moreover, her husband was forced through security screening, a process that caused him immense pain. They were just able to make it in time for him to take his medication while eating. Assistance was only offered when it came to boarding the plane.
This heart-rending saga of a couple does not stop merely at hardship. Upon boarding their flight, they were astonished to find that they had been allocated seats by the emergency exit, for which extra payments had been extracted. Soon, they were told by the staff that they could not occupy these seats and they were left scrambling to find other seating arrangements. Assistance was meagre, leaving them to fend off others who intended to invade their space.
The woman is in midst of a protracted struggle with Ryanair, having contacted them multiple times, even through insurers. The airline has been citing a myriad of technicalities and even informed the insurer that the couple was eligible for a refund and entitled to free check-in and seating, due to their need for medical help. However, Ryanair is now back-pedalling, stating that the free check-in should have been requested, even though medical help was indeed requested.
In her words, despite not losing a monumental amount of money, the overall experience was extremely distressing. The harsh landing of the airplane at an exceedingly high speed exacerbated her husband’s displaced collar bone, making matters even worse. Fortunately, following a surgery, her husband is recuperating.
Following the submission of this narrative to Ryanair, the airline has denied all accusations. As per a spokesperson, Jane “was not poorly treated by Ryanair, instead, she was rudely handled and blatantly misguided either by the travel agent or the insurance firm”.
Continuing this narrative, Ryanair made it clear that “1. The reservation was made through a Dutch travel agent on September 11th. The travel agent in this scenario booked the couple on a standard fare, including seat preference but failed to check them in online or advise them to do so prior to their airport arrival. The assurance received about “complete assistance” from start to finish was unfounded. The insurer’s recommendation to ‘avoid online check-in as Ryanair will assign suitable seats’ is ludicrous and is far from Ryanair’s renowned service standards.”.
The original text was about the circumstances in which a travel agent had arranged wheelchair assistance at Biarritz airport. This service is not provided by Ryanair but instead is overseen by the respective airport. Ryanair stated they did not know why the wheelchair assistance was unavailable or why the relevant desk was not staffed when the passengers arrived. Though the airlines pay for it, airport wheelchair assistance is provided by the airport, not the airlines. There was regret expressed that in this instance the service was unavailable, though on the passengers’ return to Dublin, Dublin Airport provided the service.
Upon reaching the check-in desk at the airport, the passengers were correctly informed they had not done the flight check-in and hence, were rightfully charged an airport check-in fee. Additionally, their travel agent did not reserve a checked bag for them, resulting in a further charge of €35.99 levied to check in a bag, which they carried in the aircraft’s hold.
One passenger alleged that their insurer had advised them that Ryanair was responsible for assigning them suitable seats. The travel agent had in fact made bookings for over-wing emergency aisle seats, but one passenger was injured and couldn’t operate the over-wing door during an emergency. Consequently, with regard to safety measures, they were not permitted to occupy these over-wing exit seats, and they swapped seats with other passengers who were physically capable of occupying the emergency over-wing exit row.
Ryanair denied receiving any inquiries from the insurance company and disputed the passenger’s claim that the insurer had made several attempts to contact them. There was just one attempt made by the Dutch travel agent on 30th September, nearly three weeks post the journey. The travel agent had falsely claimed to have booked a ‘Plus’ fare package for the passengers, but on presentation of the facts agreed, he had actually booked only the regular fare, not the ‘Plus’ fare package.
The travel agent then sought a refund of the airport check-in fee on behalf of the passengers. However, this was refused stating that the airport check-in fee was justly imposed as neither the passengers nor the travel agent had checked in online before their arrival at Biarritz Airport.
The declaration ultimately noted that while it is unfortunate that Jane and her spouse seem to have been misguided and given incorrect information in this instance, this was a result of deceitful promises made by either their insurers or their travel agent in the Netherlands, not Ryanair. Consequently, Jane’s assertions that Ryanair acted poorly towards her or neglected their obligations are inaccurate.