Passengers left stranded in Edinburgh after a 386-mile flight diversion were told to find their own way home after being forced wait on the tarmac for two hours.
Fuming travellers were left appalled at the situation when their Ryanair flight was diverted from London Stansted.
The airport closed its runway on Sunday due to bad weather and the flight from Oslo, which was delayed over two hours, had to land in the Scottish capital. Passengers were eventually allowed inside the airport after waiting two hours inside the plane.
The mayhem continued when travellers were told a bus would arrive in one hour but the replacement travel never turned up - leaving passengers stranded in a different country. Those onboard the flight, including families with young children, were forced to pay for their own travel home.
Ryanair later assured passengers the cost would be reimbursed, Edinburgh Live reports. Nikki Seddon, 35, said: “This whole ordeal has been emotionally, physically and financially draining.
“I fully appreciate things are out of our control, however the total disregard to update passengers regularly, provide onward travel and offer a simple drink of water is beyond me. Complete lack of customer care, forcing the passengers to find a solution to a pretty tumultuous issue.
“This situation is no fault of the flight crew, but the way it’s been handled is appalling. So many young children also.”
Travellers claimed they did not receive adequate support from staff during the distressing experience.
Another passenger said: “We took off, got 85 per cent of the way to Stansted according to flight radar and then we diverted to Edinburgh. They didn’t tell us until 45 minutes to landing.
“We landed at Edinburgh and joined the massive line of planes without gates. The staff at Edinburgh kept us on the plane for two hours on the tarmac before finally letting us off. We landed at midnight and were let off the plane at 2am.
“We were the last plane to disembark, we get into the terminal and are sent to Swissport customer service desk who told us that there are two options, train at 5am that we pay for ourselves and Ryanair reimburse or we wait for the free bus that was due in an hour.
“Everyone believed the bus idea, until that hour turned into two hours, three hours waiting for it. I understand it’s not the staff’s fault about diversion and weather issues but to continue pointing towards a bus idea that was never going to happen was horrendous.
“We waited until 6am before giving up and having to pay for a tram, then train down to London and then a further two trains to get home"
The "hopeless" situation left passengers stuck on the airport floor waiting on a coach that airport staff estimated would take 11-hours. Many were forced to make their own way home when the bus still hadn't arrived at 6am.
A Ryanair spokeswoman said : “Due to ongoing severe snowy weather across the UK, Stansted runway has closed temporarily disrupting flights to/from the airport last night (11 Dec) / today (12 Dec). Affected passengers have been notified and advised of their options.
“As the snowy weather continues across the UK, our teams are working hard to minimise disruption to customers and Ryanair advises all customers flying to/from the UK today (12 Dec) to check the Ryanair website/app for flight status updates before travelling to the airport.
“We sincerely apologise for these weather-related disruptions which are entirely beyond our control.”
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