In Stansted airport, it’s Friday and the start of the great summer holiday get-away. So around half of the security scanners are closed, and we patiently join the queues snaking along the nylon barriers wondering nervously if we should have paid for fast track. But there are even queues there.
Past this stage, it usually gets better. Shops, drinks, and a holiday mode set in. But last Friday, 27 July, what unfolded in Stansted was an unprecedented descent into chaos. A passing thunderstorm – we saw just one flash of lightning – was sufficient to throw the airport and Ryanair, whose main hub is at Stansted, into complete disarray.
The airport prefers to extract large rents from retailers rather than provide much seating to customers, so as the flight delays piled up, so did the bedlam, as passengers fought for somewhere to rest, lying in aisles, grabbing any space possible, crying children in tow. Not until 11pm was there a single word of information on my own flight, scheduled for 8:20pm.
At the departure gates it got worse. Just one single Ryanair-uniformed woman was fending off angry passengers at the multiple gates in terminal A. Hundreds of people were sent up and down the terminal, as they appeared to be almost randomly shifted from one gate to another. But the bars were busy. Too busy. Before long, some clowns grabbed the PA system and were screaming nonsense across the airport. The toilets flooded. In the men’s, a manager was shouting at an agency worker to clean it up as we navigated through the mess.
Those bound for Italy seem to have had it worst. They were boarded on Ryanair planes, supposedly ready to take off, only to sit on the tarmac for hour after hour. We finally boarded sometime after midnight, thanks to the single Ryanair worker who was still there, scanning boarding passes.
Then we heard of the “retrievals” – passengers ordered off planes, having spent three hours waiting for take-off. At the back of my plane, the drinkers had started vomiting over the seats. The same poor agency worker cleaning the toilet was summoned on board, mop in hand.
A near-riot then erupted, as passengers demanded to know if we were ever going to take off, or be “retrieved”. The cabin staff said they had no clue. And told us, astonishingly, that they weren’t even being paid, anyway.
Finally, we were cleared for take-off. But Stansted no longer had any ground staff, so the bags could not be loaded. Eventually, as the middle of the night approached, we actually took off, to loud cheers.
We were the lucky travellers. The “retrieved” were usually cancelled, left to fester for days waiting for a rare available seat on other flights.
On Monday my 8.10pm return flight – it was a weekend break – was delayed by four and a half hours, with no thunderstorms to blame.
And when I tried to claim my EU261 compensation? Thanks, Ryanair, for demanding an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) it knows UK flyers never use. Then, after carefully downloading one from my bank, I was told it was not valid.
I have two holiday days in August. I think I might just stay at home.
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