A man was left stunned after he boarded a Ryanair flight to Portugal, only for the flight to end up in Spain instead.
Barry Masterson took to Twitter to share his surprise and bemusement after finding out that he was not in Faro in Portugal as expected, but in fact had landed across the border in Malaga.
This is not an occasion where a passenger had mistakenly boarded the wrong flight, the flight itself appeared to have landed not only in the wrong airport, but the wrong country.
After his initial tweet, Barry went on to describe his subsequent ordeal as he and the rest of the confused passengers waited for answers.
The flight had departed from Dublin after what Barry claimed was a delay, but had not landed in Faro as expected, with Barry tweeting: "Morale is low, some people are only just realising we're in Spain."
What followed was an epic bus journey across the border, with Barry claiming that 157 people were bundled onto a bus.
He said: "Flight staff are trying to calm the crowd with the promise of the mystery box of answers that someone else will provide when we get in the airport.
"We're on a five-hour bus to Portugal now and we've stopped for petrol and pee stops within five minutes.
"I'm never getting out of here. One bus for 157 people, good luck to everyone we left behind.
"Got to the Dublin airport 12 hours ago and now I'm in a petrol station in Malaga at 5:41am, send help."
It might have seemed like a nightmare, but Barry found it was, in fact, real, writing: "Oh no, this wasn't a dream, just woke up, I'm still on a bus in who knows where."
He continued: "We're doing a bus swap at the border. The new bus driver is here sans bus. I'm getting coffee.
"Had a taxi booked from Faro airport to the hotel last night and their receptionist sent a furious text about us landing in Malaga.
"I'm sorry we didn't call to warn you from literally thousands of feet in the air that we were being taken hostage to the wrong country".
In a statement to DublinLive, a Ryanair spokesperson claimed that the disruption had been caused by strikes in French Air Traffic Control.
She said: "This flight from Dublin to Faro (September 16) diverted to Malaga having missed Faro Airport's curfew due to disruption from the French Air Traffic Control (ATC) strike, which was entirely beyond our control and impacted all airlines flying to/from/over France that day.
"To minimise disruption to passengers, Ryanair quickly arranged for a coach to transport passengers from Malaga Airport to their final destination.
"Ryanair sincerely apologises to passengers for the inconvenience caused as a result of this unjustified French ATC strike."
