Fuming fliers have described the ‘appalling’ situation that left them stranded in Edinburgh when their Ryanair flight was diverted from London Stansted without replacement travel.
The passengers had left Oslo in Norway when they received a sudden announcement that they'd be landing in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh Live reported.
The diversion came after Stansted closed its runway on Sunday due to bad weather.
The group of passengers sat in the plane on the tarmac at Edinburgh for two hours, before eventually being allowed inside the airport.
It was at this point they were told they would have to wait on a bus or organise their own travel home.
After being assured the bus would arrive in an hour, travellers were furious when their replacement travel option didn’t show up at all.
This left many passengers, including families with young children, with little option but to pay for their own travel home - a cost Ryanair later assured passengers would be reimbursed.
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 also complained that there was a lack of staff to provide them with information during the stressful experience.
Another passenger said: “We took off, got 85% 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."
The passenger said when they got into the terminal they were told they could either wait for the bus or a train at 5am.
“Everyone believed the bus idea, until that hour turned into two hours, three hours waiting for it," they added.
"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. Still on the way home now.”
“The coach was going to have to take 11 hours according to staff, and by 6am they were still chasing the bus idea, however 90% of passengers that were stuck on the floor for the entire night gave up and chose their own way home, it was pretty hopeless.”
Stansted Airport was not the only travel hub affected by the bad weather yesterday and on Sunday.
More than 100 flights due to serve UK airports were cancelled with Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester and London City airports among the worst affected.
Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester all had had to close a runway, resulting in massive backlogs of passengers.
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.”
