A surprise for Ryanair passengers traveling between Dublin, Ireland and Faro, Portugal on Friday evening when they arrived in Malaga, Spain instead. What happened ? Due to the French air traffic control strike, air traffic was heavily disturbed. Like for the Ryanair Boeing 737-800 (registered EI-DPI). With a delay of over four hours, the aircraft took off from the Irish airport.
Before approaching Faro airport, the aircraft diverted to Malaga, Spain. Apparently, Faro airport has a curfew and is closed for air traffic after a certain time.
Barry Masterson, one of the passengers, was surprised to have arrived in Spain and not in Portugal. After hours of waiting at the airport, they finally were invited to board a bus which took them to Faro, a five hour ride!
In a series of tweets (read below), Barry indeed recounts his journey, detailing the change of driver at the border, the pee stops and other funny events, or not, that he and the other passengers had to deal with.
Ryanair confirmed that the plane in question had to be diverted due to the air traffic controllers’ strike in France and apologizes for the inconvenience.
Got on a @Ryanair flight to Faro and I'm in Malaga lads, you couldn't make this up ???
— Barry Masterson (@BarryMasterson) September 17, 2022
