Another day, another chance for Ryanair to make the news. Today’s incident comes from the Spanish Canary Islands where a plane full of passengers had to be emptied after a mass fight broke out.
The fight happened after one passenger got angry when he was told he’d need to pay to have his oversize bag checked. This didn’t go down well with him, or with the large number of fellow students he was traveling with.
A fight broke out and the flight crew called for assistance. Police arrived, and all 168 passengers were told to leave the plane.
According to the news report, all passengers had to be “identified”, which probably means the flight crew pointed out which of them were involved in the scuffle.
Of those 168, only 64 were allowed to fly home to Belgium. The rest of them were forced to spend the night in Lanzarote. None of the students stranded on the island had any money left, so the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to intervene, forcing Ryanair to fly the students back. This will take several days as the group is being flown back five or six at a time.
Thankfully for Ryanair, this is one incident that can’t be blamed on them – and those passengers stuck on the island deserve all the inconvenience they can get.
UPDATE: Ryanair issued a response to the incident on their site.
[photo: AFP/Getty Images]