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Passengers slam BAA and Ryanair
Amar Singh08.12.08
MARCUS Bennion, chief executive of a sports management company from Peterborough, was travelling with his colleague Jennifer McClellan to Shannon on Ryanair. Mr Bennion said: "I arrived here at 7am only to find that the flight was cancelled. I'm generally supportive of the climate-change cause but I'm utterly disappointed at the way Stansted and Ryanair have handled this. There's a total lack of staff in the airport. No one is taking responsibility. Obviously the security breach is BAA's fault. I'm not a customer of BAA, I'm a customer of Ryanair. Their telephone system's completely inadequate and we have an important presentation to deliver in Ireland tonight. Right now it's looking like a week's delay before we can actually make it out there."
Tania Budinabicahene, an accountancy student from Cambridge, was travelling to Kaunus, Lithuania, with Ryanair. Miss Budinabicahene said: "I arrived here just before 7am. I was checked in and went through security and there are some people who even got onto the flights. Nobody knew what was going on and then they announced that all these flights were cancelled so I'm just queuing now. They have advised us to go home but I need to go back to Lithuania tonight for Christmas. It is completely out of order. The security procedures should have been in place but after it happened they should have cleared out the protesters sooner."
Mark Jameson, from Northampton, a software trainer, was travelling to Kerry on Ryanair. "I arrived here at 7am and they told us to keep an eye on the screens. Next thing we know the flight was closed. I tried to rebook on the internet but you can't book a flight for the same day on the Ryanair website. I'm queuing to see what I can do but I'm not getting very far. This will cheese a lot of people off. I'm travelling for business but for kids on their Christmas holidays it's really sad. I don't think what the climate change protesters have done will change anything or get them any more support."
Reader views (3)
People haven't learnt anything from other people's woes with Ryanair. If this happened at LHR, I guess you would have been treated better with BA, BD and VS. But hey, you get what you pay for : zero customer service. People flying a cheap airline, with no plan B when things go wrong, with no unions allowed for the crew, have only themselves to blame...
- Mourad Chakroun, Antwerp, Belgium
How come no other airline cancelled flights, or is Stansted exclusively a Ryanair airport? Why is it when these so-called "events beyond the airline's control" occur, other airlines manage to operate an albeit limited service, whereas Ryanair cancel their flights wholesale?
- Richard, Madrid, Spain
They broke through the perimeter fence at 3am. They were spotted very shortly thereafter. They were cleared at 8.30am. Why does it take over five hours to clear some 50 peaceful protestors?
- Sir P, London
