Ryanair abandons passengers in Rijeka

Ryanair flight departs without passengers from Rijeka

Ryanair is in the headlines again for the wrong reasons and this time passengers from Croatia have been affected. Last Friday, the no frills airline informed passengers it was cancelling its morning flight from Rijeka to Stockholm Skavsta Airport due to strong winds. Little did passengers know that the aircraft departed two hours later to the Swedish capital empty, leaving them stranded in Rijeka. Understandably, passengers were extremely frustrated. “I never thought they would behave this badly. We knew we were travelling with a budget airline but we never thought they’d leave us behind”, passenger Mirva Axelsson said.

Ryanair did not provide alternatives for the stranded passengers, leaving them to find their own way out of the country, made more difficult by the lack of internet connection at the terminal. Some passengers were forced to take a taxi to Trieste, where they caught a train to Treviso and finally went by plane back to Sweden. Passengers spent up to a thousand euros to find alternative transport to their final destination, money Ryanair is refusing to compensate. The Swedish Consumer Agency, Konsumentverket, has slammed Ryanair for its conduct last Friday. It says the airline was required to offer help with finding passengers alternative transport and provide them with food and accommodation.

Passengers booked on the Ryanair flight to Stockholm were mostly Swedish tourists who had spent their holiday in Croatia. The news comes after it was reported that up to 28 Ryanair flights made emergency landings due to fuel shortages, a result of their cost cutting approach to load the least possible amount of fuel onto their aircraft. The Irish and Spanish authorities have launched an investigation into Ryanair’s practices.