A couple were left furious after they claim they were taken to the wrong country by Ryanair.
The idea was that Simon Forster and Emma Schofield were to take a lovely Christmas trip to Copenhagen in Denmark, but ended up landing near to Paris in France, hundreds of miles away.
After battling through the ‘horrendous’ queues at Manchester Airport to catch their flights, the pair claim they arrived at the gate to have their passports and boarding passes inspected by airline staff.
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Then, they were brought down a set of stairs and ushered onto the flight, which they believed was taking them off to Scandinavia.
Simon says that they offered to show boarding passes again to staff on the aircraft, but were told ‘don’t worry about it’ before being told to get into their seats.
They didn’t think too much more of it until they were greeted in French at passport control on the other side, realising that they were in the French city of Beauvais, which is about 750 miles from where they thought they were headed.
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Ryanair says the responsibility of getting onto the right plane lies with passengers, and added that there are ‘touchpoints’ along the way that should help passengers check that, telling them the destination of the flight.
However, Simon maintains that he didn’t hear any such announcement in English over the PA system.
He told the Manchester Evening News: “The shock of landing somewhere near Paris when you’re supposed to be going to Copenhagen was ridiculous.
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“I would like to understand how on earth this happened."
He wants an apology from Ryanair, and is also hoping that they’ll refund the price of the flight and reimburse him for the hotels and taxis he took whilst in France.
In total, he claims he had to spend more than £930.
Simon reckons they waited for more than two hours at security on 17 December.
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He said: “The queue for security was absolutely enormous and we were all crammed in like cattle. It seemed as though we were going to miss our flight.
“When we got past the shampoo police we got out into the airport and there was a last call for Copenhagen.
“It was already past the departure time, so we just legged it to the gate.
“We got there, and three Ryanair staff asked if we were there for Copenhagen.
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“There was a red plastic link chain directly ahead and to the right, so we turned to the left and to the plane that was there."
He continued: “We got on and there were only about six other passengers, which was not surprising because so many people were missing flights.
“I did show the stewardess my boarding pass and she said ‘oh, don't worry about it’.
“I was dripping in sweat.
“Our seat numbers were free, so we sat down.
“We landed in less time than we expected and as we walked into the airport I thought I didn’t recognise it and I go to Copenhagen quite a lot.
“We were greeted at passport control with ‘Bonjour’ and it became apparent that we were in France.”
Still, they made the most of it.
“We went through security and found a guy who spoke English who told us where we were,” he said.
“He was heading into Paris so we asked if we could share a cab.
“We had a lovely weekend and on the way back we kept getting messages from Ryanair about the return Copenhagen flight being delayed.”
In total, he spent €1,108 on flights, hotels, and taxis included.
He concluded: “After spending hours calling Ryanair and filling in online forms, my complaint is showing as 'solved'.
“I was told on Monday that I would be contacted in three days. Today (Friday) I called again and someone hung up on me.
“It really was a s*** show."
LADbible has contacted Ryanair for a comment.
Tom Wood