Stranded Ryanair flight attendant writes his/her story about the famous night at Malaga Airport

A new chapter in the saga between Ryanair and their stranded Porto based crew members:  as previously written 24 crew members got stranded at Malaga Airport, spending the night in a confined area at the airport (Ryanair explained they couldn’t find accommodation as everything was fully booked, a story that turned out to be untrue). The crew staged a sleeping-on-the-floor picture, a photo that quickly went viral on social media. Two days later (17 October), Ryanair used their official twitter account to release a video exposing the fake picture. Today (19 October), a flight attendant – who wishes to stay anonymous – writes his/her story about the famous night.  

Dear Ryanair and General Public:

As one of the crew directly involved in the 13th of October’s regrettable and unbelievable event, I wish to make myself heard. Lacking any other way of doing it, and assuming my identification would have the consequences we all know, this is the way I found to do it.

I (as everyone else directly affected by those events, as matter of fact) have kept silent as far as social media and public statements are concerned. We all know who are the competent authorities to deal with this issue, and those have certainly been made aware of it and have all our cooperation.

In fact none of us has managed to have proper sleep that night as we only had the floor to do it and that picture was taken as protest to prove that Ryanair gave us no other option to rest, after more than 12h duty in some cases.

Please note I don’t feel like I owe you any justifications. At the most I deserve a good explanation for the degrading and inhuman situation I were subjected to. For those of you who are wondering what it was: we were stranded in an airport’s restricted area – which means we didn’t have freedom to move around without being escorted for 13h. Part of that time was spent in an area with no seating for all the 24 people stranded there. No access to food or potable water for 12h of those 13H. Yes, this is 2018!

Apparently, you can either draw undeniable conclusions of what you didn’t hear or read, but you’re unable to draw a logic conclusion of a self-explanatory picture. They say an image is worth a 1000 words … guess it’s not so true, apparently it depends on how it suits you better, Ryanair.

And now, dear Ryanair, since you were so proactive, so quick and so agile in disregarding every single privacy law, I only wish you had been equally as proactive and agile when we needed you to provide us suitable accommodation, food and potable water.

Seriously, it would have spared us a whole lot of trouble and saved us a whole lot of time. Since you showed the world the CCTV footage to prove what a bunch of filthy liars we are, I dare you to share with us the whole footage. You know, the one where you can clearly see us seating on the floor or standing on our feet for hours due to lack of suitable seating. Please, show us the footage where we can see how long we’ve been waiting in that room and how many times we contacted you in order to solve the situation.

Please, show us the footage where you can see us calling local hotels just to find out there were plenty of rooms available (oh … but wait … that was your job … The one and only you had regarding us, and you absolutely failed at it!) And, please, when you use the words VIP lounge, make sure you enlighten the world of what you’re talking about, as most of the world wouldn’t consider a musty smelly room filled with couches and armchairs, where we’re being watched by a security guard in order to ensure we didn’t leave the room, as VIP …

Did I mention no access to potable food or water?

It matters to say that up until now, not even an apology was presented to us. Instead Ryanair decided to behave like a spoiled child blaming everyone but themselves for their own mistakes. And no, I don’t consider a post on social media saying you apologize an actual and suitable apology! You can do better!

Sincerely

A stranded cabin crew