Ryanair passengers were left furious after being offered a replacement bus after a 700km diversion. Photo / Getty Images
Ryanair passengers were left furious after being offered a replacement bus after a 700km diversion. Photo / Getty Images
"You get what you pay for" is the mantra that governs the economics of budget airlines.
Unless of course you travel with Ryanair, in which case you aren't even guaranteed that.
The 200 passengers flying from London to Thessaloniki in Greece discovered this when their diverted Ryanair flight was replaced with a 800km bus journey.
On January 4, Ryanair flight FR 8582 was diverted to Timisoara in Romania by foggy conditions.
The delay was only made worse when the airline offered a replacement bus service to take the passengers on the remaining 770km to Greece in icy conditions. The resulting journey led to delays of almost 24 hours.
Passengers felt this decision to divert to Romania was made for cost-minimising reasons, as the airline already operates out of Timisoara.
"They could have landed us at a Greek airport," flight passenger Sakis Papadopoulos, 36, told The Associated Press.
Public flight data shows the plane began the diversion less than 50km from the Greek border, over Macedonian airspace. When unable to land at Thessaloniki the airline chose instead to turn the service back on itself, crossing the airspace of Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia to land in Romania - which does not even share a border with Greece.
"Our flight was already delayed and then, around 10.30pm (Friday), they informed us we would be landing at Timisoara instead of Thessaloniki," Papadopoulos said.
89 of the passengers refused the bus service, in spite of pressure by airport authorities, and were kept in the baggage area overnight.
Last night a flight to #SKG (Thessaloniki, Greece) the worst airline in the world @Ryanair could not land due to bad weather. They diverted to Romania and they left 200 people at the airport with no service at all. 2 GR airports few km away were open for landing SHAME @RYRNews
Papadopoulos, who had traveled to London for the holidays, said that the passengers were finally offered a hotel stay at 8am Saturday but they refused, saying they would stay put until a plane arrived to take them to Greece.
"Some of us contacted Greek media," Papadopoulos said.
Timisoara: Passengers were skeptical as to the choice of airport Diverted to. Photo / Flight Radar
Informed of the passengers' plight, the Greek government arranged with Greek carrier Aegean Airlines to send a plane to Timisoara. Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis weighed in against what he said were "low cost, low social responsibility" airlines.
The 89 passengers arrived in Thessaloniki around 5pm Saturday. The flight normally would have taken around 3.5 hours.
@BBCBreaking My parents & 200 passengers of FR8582 @Ryanair from LDN to SKG have been stranded in Timisoara airport due to weather. No one in sight and no one answering phones. Babies and elderly spending the night in the cold. Please publish in order for @Ryanair to act tonight.
Ryanair issued an apology for the diversion, saying that it was "beyond our control".
Ryanair was recently voted the "Worst Airline in the World" for the sixth consecutive year by Which? a UK consumer magazine. The budget carrier also faces a series of strikes across its Spanish over crew pay and work conditions, due to take place this month.
In spite of this the Irish-based airline is forecast to carry 141million passengers next year - almost double doubling traffic in six years - and make over NZ$3.3 billion in charges for travel "extras" alone.
