Two dozen Ryanair crew members were allegedly forced to sleep on the floor of an airport office in Spain over the weekend.
In a photo shared by the Facebook group Ryanair MUST Change on Sunday, at least six crew members can be seen lying on the floor of an office space.
Portuguese airline union SNPVAC provided details in a statement Monday, reporting that at least four Porto-bound flights were diverted to Malaga on Saturday due to Tropical Storm Leslie.
“Upon arrival to Malaga Airport, the 24 crew (eight pilots and 16 cabin crew) were placed in a room, without the minimum rest facilities, where the crew that is based on that airport perform their briefings and where Ryanair has their Malaga offices,” the Facebook post read.
“The 24 crew members were there since 01:30 until 06:00 (local time) without access to food, drinks and even a place to sit down, as there were only eight seats available for the 24 crew,” the union added. “They had no other choice, as the photo illustrates than to attempt to rest on the room’s floor.”
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
Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer Peter Bellew defended the airline in a response on social media, apologizing but noting the crew members were eventually moved to a VIP lounge.
Unfortunately. All hotels were completely booked out in Malaga. The storm created huge damage in Portugal. Later after this the crew moved to VIP lounge. Apologies to the crew we could not find accommodation.
— Peter Bellew (@peterbellew) October 14, 2018
In a follow-up statement, the Irish low-cost carrier called the photo “staged.”
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“Due to storms in Porto a number of flights diverted to Malaga,” Ryanair said in a statement to the BBC. “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.”
SNPVAC plans to issue a formal complaint to civil aviation authorities.
“We expect an urgent and robust intervention so that events like this won’t happen again,” the union said.
The latest drama comes on the heels of a wave of negative headlines involving Ryanair. The beleaguered airline recently airlines/pilot-strike-prompts-hundreds-of-ryanair-flight-cancellations.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow”>dealt with multiple worker strikes, had airlines/ryanair-issued-compensation-checks-that-bounced.html” target=”_self” rel=”nofollow”>customer compensation checks bounce and saw several passengers hospitalized after one of its aircraft lost cabin pressure mid-flight.
