Foto: curimedia
As reported in Público (which doesn’t seem to like Ryanair much), a resident of Granollers outside Barcelona, had his wallet stolen whilst in Barcelona’s El Prat airport in April 2011.
In his wallet was his DNI, or national identity card, which he was relying on to identify himself for his upcoming flight from Barcelona to Valladolid.
Having arrived two and a half hours before the flight was due to take off, he was able to go to the airport police and fill out a police report regarding the crime.
He approached the departure desk on the air side with his driver’s license, the copy of the police report, and a photocopy of his DNI and explained the situation to the staff at the Ryanair desk, but they chose not to let him fly.
Ryanair offered to allow him to fly the following day, if he could get a replacement identity card or present a passport, but it would cost him an additional €100 to purchase the new ticket.
The individual, Antonio Ramos, refused, returned home, took his car and drove to his destination, some 720kms. That gave him about seven hours to think about it, evidently.
Ramos is now taking Ryanair to court in Granollers. Separately, the “Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea” (State Air Security Agency) intends to fine Ryanair €250 plus the cost of the ticket for “unjustifiably denying boarding”.
Did the thief realise the shitstorm he created by taking this guys wallet?
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Oh, Ryanair is the worst company you can imagine! I have been denied boarding at least three times, one of them because my luggage was too heavy and I decided to wear as much as I could of my cloth to reduce weight. I said to Ryanair just at the boarding gate: “I am cold that´s why I wear so much cloth”. They said:”No! It goes against our security rules! Boarding denied!” So happy this man decided to sue them!
Interesting story, although it just goes to show how much inconvenience a thief can cause others while facing little or no risk of inconvenience to him/herself. I have no love for Ryanair and I support the guy’s and the State Air Security Agency’s court actions wholeheartedly. But it’s ironic that there are two knock-on legal cases as a result of one theft, but the thief knew there was almost no chance of ending up in court for taking a wallet (in a supposedly high-security airport, I might add).
I often wonder if some people realise that because Ryanair flights fly full, there is a limit to the weight the aircraft can carry and a limit to the volume of luggage it can carry.
I realise that this is difficult to comprehend in the Land of Overbooking but an aircraft can only carry so much and not a gram or cubic centimetre more.
@ Iain – of course planes have weight limits but Ryanair’s measures are not about safety, it’s only about getting more money from passengers. Ryanair use the same kind of planes as other airlines, but their hold luggage allowance is 15kg. Most other airlines are 20kg.
Ryanair flights do not always “fly full”. I have been on dozens of Ryanair flights that were well below capacity, some practically empty. In any case, many passengers on Ryanair travel with only hand luggage because they do not wish to pay for luggage to be stowed in the hold. So the total weight of a full Ryanair flight is lighter than most other airlines using the same type of plane. It’s not about comprehending weight limits but about reading the fine print in the Ryanair terms and conditions – something most people choose to skip. Ryanair hedge their bets on people making oversights or errors but having little or no choice but to pay or miss a flight. They encourage their staff to be overzealous and in the case of the man who was robbed in the story above they denied boarding without adequate reason. No wonder people are cheering him on now that he is suing them.
I only wish the thief could be brought to account too.
Bitch as you like about Ryanair. I traveled to Spain 3 times in the last 3 months. There is no way I could do this any other way. I paid more to get to Spain 20 years ago. Keep the rules and be grateful