Dozens of Ryanair passengers left stranded in France on Christmas Eve because of fog finally arrived in Ireland yesterday, but expressed anger and dissatisfaction with the airline after missing Christmas Day with their families.
Ryanair flight 1153 eventually landed at Shannon airport at 4pm yesterday. The flight should have arrived on Sunday afternoon but was grounded in Carcassonne in the south of France because of the weather. Several Ryanair flights, including services to Shannon, Dublin and Brussels, were cancelled because of the weather; however some other flights did manage to take off.
In a statement yesterday Ryanair apologised to the delayed passengers. It was unsafe to operate the flight on Sunday, it said.
Edel Banos from Dublin was looking forward to her first Christmas at home in Ireland in three years but was stuck in Carcassonne. "We are not happy at all, it has been a total nightmare. When we couldn't get home to Ireland we had to drive for three hours to my husband's family in Montpellier and then my daughter got sick. We had to pay about €70 worth of tolls getting to Montpellier and back and were told that we would not be refunded for that either."
She added: "We weren't even offered a cup of tea or a sandwich and were told in Carcassonne that when we got to Shannon we would have to make our own arrangements to get to Dublin.
"My father, who is 70, had to drive down to collect us and then we were told in Shannon that there would be a flight to take us to Dublin. Too little, too late, I'm afraid."
Another irate passenger said: "It would have been one thing if the airport was completely fog- bound and all flights were cancelled . . . we would have accepted that until we saw some flights taking-off and landing."
Student Tom Killeen, from Bawnmore, Eyrecourt, Co Galway, said he was fortunate that he could go back to his apartment in Toulouse. "In fairness, I can't blame Ryanair for the weather and I am lucky I had some place to stay other than the airport."
Catherine Wakelin, from Caherconlish, Co Limerick, said she couldn't really complain about how she was treated. "I was lucky really that my family lives about half an hour from the airport so I stayed there, but there were people trying to get to Ireland for a wedding and they were left in the airport."
Patrick Rose, an aeronautical engineer from Galway, explained that Carcassonne airport is equipped to accommodate flights in poor visibility, but that its geographical location in a mountainous area means that the criteria for low visibility landings are differentthere.