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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
World
Gavin O'Callaghan

Trapped Ryanair passenger charged for drink despite flight 'diverted to Edinburgh'

A thoroughly fed-up Ryanair passenger says she was forced to pay for water despite being trapped onboard for hours after her London flight was diverted to Edinburgh.

Jenny Lynch was one of many travellers who ended up 583km off course due to Storm Eunice.

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The group then spent three hours sitting on the jet in Edinburgh Airport after the plane couldn't land in London and diverted, reports our sister title CorkBEO.

The flight left Cork Airport at 11.05am on Friday before heading to London, circling over, then diverting due to the stormy conditions.

It eventually touched down in Edinburgh at 2.03pm, at which point passengers were given some options.

They were told they could leave and find their own transport to London, or stay onboard and wait to see when it could take off again.

Jenny said about nine opted to leave, while the rest ended up in their seats for what turned out to be three hours.

The flight took off again at 4.55pm and made it to Gatwick by 6.15pm - with passengers having been onboard for over seven hours.

The Castlemartyr native told CorkBeo how people were getting sick due the turbulence, and blasted the airline for charging people for water while they were stuck there

Speaking today from London she said: "They gave us two options when we landed in Edinburgh, they said that we could get off the plane and find our own transport out of our own pockets, or stay on the plane and wait.

"About nine people got off the plane. We landed in Scotland at 2pm and left at about 5pm. We were just sitting there for three hours, they wouldn't let us off.

"They had the front door open for air but they were still charging people for water and food.

"When it had tried to land in London earlier people were getting sick, they ran out of sick bags and even then people needed water and they were charging for it.

"When it diverted nobody knew what was going on. They just said they were trying to sort something and once they finally said we were going to Edinburgh people were like 'can we just go back to Cork?' There was no real plan.

"From embarking in Cork to finally getting off in London we spent eight hours on the plane. I had my four-year-old son with me and there were a lot of other kids on board too.

"Eight hours is a long time to be sat there, but when you're a child it's really really long."

Following the journey the airline emailed passengers claiming they "made all reasonable efforts to prevent and reduce the flight delay, and understand the inconvenience it may have caused".

They followed with: "We sincerely apologise that your flight FR9852 from Cork to London was diverted to Edinburgh on 18-02-2022.

"We are committed to providing on time services for all passengers, but exceptionally there are situations outside of our control that affect our flight operations.

"Passengers' well-being is important to us and we try our best to minimise the inconvenience of flight disruptions while complying with EU Regulation 261/2004.

"We again apologise for the delay of your flight."

In a statement to the media they added that the situation was "entirely beyond our control".

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