Leave it Ryanair to suggest passengers take a bus from Romania to Greece after a flight diversion. What? It’s only about 500 miles.
A perfect weekend in sunny Thessaloniki, one of my favorite cities in Greece. What could wrong? Apparently, a lot.
The Ryanaiar flight from London Stansted took off as planned and on schedule. But weather was bad in Thessaloniki, prompting a diversion.
Now, weather was much better in Athens. Conditions also were not bad in neighboring Tirana, Albania or Skopje, Macedonia. Ryanair flies to Athens as well: it’s not like landing the aircraft in ATH would present logical hurdles too difficult to overcome.
Thus, it was perfectly logical that the aircraft diverted to ROMANIA instead! Yes, passengers found themselves in Timisoara, Romana with an offer to board a bus for the last TEN HOURS of the journey…
89 passengers flatly refused.
A new low from #Ryanair. Due to severe weather conditions, one of its planes couldn't reach Thessaloniki in #Greece and decided to land in Timisoara in #Romania, some 750 kilometers away! They didn't pick Athens or some other regional Greek airport. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/IEZ2n9aTMB
— Makis Mylonas (@MylonasMakis) January 5, 2019
Per RT (and I know, it’s RT), the government of Greece sent a rescue Aegean flight to pick up the remaining passengers the following evening. I cannot imagine that would run cheaper than landing in Athens, but maybe Ryanair will skirt the bill like it skirts its compensation claims?
CONCLUSION
The funny thing is not so much the proposal that passenger take a 10-hour bus ride, but that it was necessary in the first place. Of course I’m playing armchair CEO here, but my goodness…was there really nothing closer? It seems like another case of penny wise-pound foolish for the budget carrier.
original image: Ryanair / Instagram – stylized by me
Still not as bad as when my LH A380 FRA-JFK diverted to ATL because of snowstorms, and LH decided the best idea was to fly their plane empty back to FRA and bus the passengers from Atlanta to New York. Even as an F passenger no other option, luckily found the last Y award seat on UA to EWR the next morning. I wasn’t planning on sitting on a bus for 13 hours.
A bus to New York. Oh the humanity…
You do realize that an airplane is a bus with wings?
You do realize that a bus is a steamer ship with wheels?
Wonder how this plan would have gone over with those Alaska passengers who got stuck in Buffalo?
On the bright side they didn’t have to finish the trip on Ryanair.