Ryanair is calling a viral photo of a 737 crew sleeping on the floor of Malaga Airport “staged” and misleading.
And while I am usually a harsh critic of Ryanair, I’m somewhat sympathetic to its argument.
The picture below, posted by an ex-Ryanair pilot, shows Ryanair crew sleeping on the hard airport floor without pillows or blankets:
This is a Ryanair 737 crew based in Portugal, stranded in Malaga, Spain a couple of nights ago due to storms. They are sleeping on the floor of the Ryanair crew room. RYR is earning €1.25 billion this year but will not put stranded crews in a hotel for the night. @peterbellew ? pic.twitter.com/lILWZVqqGj
— Jim Atkinson (@Jimbaba) October 14, 2018
But it requires context. Storm Leslie, which reached the coast of Portugal last Saturday, forced many diversions, including several Ryanair flights bound for Portugal. Some of those flights diverted to Malaga. Ryanair told the Irish Daily Mirror:
This picture is clearly staged and no crew ‘slept on the floor’.
Due to storms in Porto (13 Oct) a number of flights diverted to Malaga and as this was a Spanish national holiday, hotels were fully booked.
The crew spent a short period of time in the crew room before being moved to a VIP lounge, and returned to Porto the next day (none of the crew operated flights).
Ryanair crews disputed this, arguing only the “cheap” hotels were sold out.
The pilots aren’t buying it! pic.twitter.com/OJRKfwyAUm
— Jim Atkinson (@Jimbaba) October 14, 2018
It is not disputed that the crew was eventually moved to a VIP lounge. But the union representing Ryanair’s Portuguese crews said that the crew was left “without access to food, drinks and even a place to sit down, as there were only 8 seats available for the crew.” The crew, which spanned a trio of flights, included 24 people.
I can see why the crews would not be happy to be in a VIP lounge, since those rarely include beds or even comfortable chairs for sleeping. But I don’t immediately dismiss that there were no rooms available due to the holiday weekend and storm.
CONCLUSION
Ryanair routinely fails its customers and crews. Here, though, I am not so sure the budget carrier is guilty. On the contrary, rather than leaving the crew with nothing, Ryanair at least got them into a VIP lounge.
What do you think? Was Ryanair up to its usual tricks here?
Ryanair has created the perception they are about as trustworthy as the Saudis
Hi Matthew. According to loungebuddy.com that lounge closes at 11:00 PM.
I’m assuming, though, that Ryanair got the lounge to keep it open overnight to house its crews.
Well… the only portuguese that is a hard worker is Cristiano Ronaldo. Other just a lazy bum. Work a little, spend the rest of the day on protest.
Your more about yourself, than the Portuguese. Have a little respect.
Basically the Portuguese are lazy, Americans are fat, English are drunk and sunburned, etc…
How old are you?
I can believe that the photo is staged – but I have a hard time believing that there were no hotel rooms available. Andalucia, Malaga and the nearby Costa del Sol get more than 7 million visitors during their main season and there are thousands of accommodations. October is off-season and despite a local holiday, it should have been possible to find rooms without a problem, maybe not at Ryan Air contract hotels, but exceptional situations like this require probably decisions that Ryan Air staff was not authorized to make, willing to make or could think off…
My own flights on Ryan Air were much better than its reputation, but they clearly have some operational and staff issues they need to address. They are not a scrappy start-up anymore, they are one of the biggest airlines and employers in Europe in the industry… they need to start acting like it..
The photo was staged, Ryanair has posted CCTV footage of the crew lying on the floor, taking the pic and then getting up.