Furious Ryanair passengers refuse to leave plane at Liege

[Nevihta]

The captain is the boss on board. He can disembark any person and take any decision. I'm not totally aware of the legal concerns, but if passengers refuse to comply, I think they are in trouble. If the captain doesn't have control on his aircraft anymore because of some people, it's looks like the definition of Hi-Jacking.

[regi]

oh yes, about the theft. Am I right that the flight attendants are responsable for the goods? Just like a supermarket cashier must pay the difference if the balance at the end of his shift is negative ?
Hey, don't complain. You underwrote that contract. You all admired the new emperor of free enterprise, challenging European legislation. You all shared the idea that ATC's should be hold financially responsable when they strike. You loved Him when he wanted every country to change their legislation.
I had once a job I didn't like at all. I cursed myself because it took me 11 months to convince myself to leave it. ( I had immediately another job with a major pay rise, bonus and nice company car ) I still feel embarrassed that I let them abuse me for 11 months, a bit Ryanair style.
So dear Ryanair staff, cheer up, there is a whole world waiting for you. If you put on your resumé that you were able to work for some time at Ryanair, you have great chances on the labour market because you proved that you are stress resistant.
And if you feel revengefull, be sure that your leave will hurt them a lot because training new staff costs a lot of money.

[sean1982]

Once again regi you prove that you don't know what you are talking about: who says this was not hijacking? are you qualified to judge that? Passengers that take over control from is a hijacking point. And on top of that, whenever the captain declares a hijacking it's a fact, he has the sole legal right to declare it.

And who complained about my working conditions? I'm 8 years in the company and earn very good money. probably about 3 times the standard belgian wage. especially for cabin crew. did I complain! I don't think so, so don't put words in my mind.

[sean1982]

Once again regi you prove that you don't know what you are talking about: who says this was not hijacking? are you qualified to judge that? Passengers that take over control from is a hijacking point. And on top of that, whenever the captain declares a hijacking it's a fact, he has the sole legal right to declare it.

And who complained about my working conditions? I'm 8 years in the company and earn very good money. probably about 3 times the standard belgian wage. especially for cabin crew. did I complain! I don't think so, so don't put words in my mouth.

[regi]

The captain is the boss on board. He can disembark any person and take any decision. I'm not totally aware of the legal concerns, but if passengers refuse to comply, I think they are in trouble. If the captain doesn't have control on his aircraft anymore because of some people, it's looks like the definition of Hi-Jacking.

The entire staff left the airplane and left the passengers alone.
The one and only reason why they left was that they knew that they could not defend this case to the passengers.
Yes, there was no more reasoning. The reasoning stopped in fact when Ryanair decided to depart from Fes to avoid penalties. And they made it worse to drop off the customers 4 hours away from their destination.
But again, nothing will happen. Just a stirr in glass of water.

[sean1982]

The captain is the boss on board. He can disembark any person and take any decision. I'm not totally aware of the legal concerns, but if passengers refuse to comply, I think they are in trouble. If the captain doesn't have control on his aircraft anymore because of some people, it's looks like the definition of Hi-Jacking.

The entire staff left the airplane and left the passengers alone.
The one and only reason why they left was that they knew that they could not defend this case to the passengers.
Yes, there was no more reasoning. The reasoning stopped in fact when Ryanair decided to depart from Fes to avoid penalties. And they made it worse to drop off the customers 4 hours away from their destination.
But again, nothing will happen. Just a stirr in glass of water.

says the self declared specialist of talking aviation nonsense, please come back the moment you know when you are talking about :-s

And before you start, yes, I am an aviation safety and security instructor so I DO know what I'm talking about

[regi]

Once again regi you prove that you don't know what you are talking about: who says this was not hijacking? are you qualified to judge that? Passengers that take over control from is a hijacking point. And on top of that, whenever the captain declares a hijacking it's a fact, he has the sole legal right to declare it.

And who complained about my working conditions? I'm 8 years in the company and earn very good money. probably about 3 times the standard belgian wage. especially for cabin crew. did I complain! I don't think so, so don't put words in my mouth.

Did the passengers take over control of the airplane ? As far as I have read they refused to disembark and ate some candy bars.
Yep, when the captain declares there is a hijacking, it is a fact. For which declaration he is accountable. And if it turns out it was not a hijacking, he has committed a crime.
I did not refer to your working conditions. I refer to the bad experience of your colleagues. They have to live with it, good money or not.
You blame the passengers? Than you might have forgotten who pays your salary.
I am really surprised that you don't show any respect for the customers who had to undergo this treatment.

[Nevihta]

The entire staff left the airplane and left the passengers alone.
The one and only reason why they left was that they knew that they could not defend this case to the passengers.
Yes, there was no more reasoning. The reasoning stopped in fact when Ryanair decided to depart from Fes to avoid penalties. And they made it worse to drop off the customers 4 hours away from their destination.
But again, nothing will happen. Just a stirr in glass of water.

According to other reports, passengers became aggressive and threatening...
So don't come to quick to conclusions unless you were onboard or you have some sources we don't.
Your anger against Ryanair doesn't justify wrong informations.

[cnc]

You blame the passengers? Than you might have forgotten who pays your salary.
I am really surprised that you don't show any respect for the customers who had to undergo this treatment.

get real...
1: pax know this can happen when booking with FR
2: FR's OCC decide where to divert to, pilots can not override this just to please pax
3: crew is also 4 hours away from their station and want to go home
4: if pax don't show respect then they shouldn't get any back

i hope the hijackers get punished

[Acid-drop]

From Liège local TV, 2 more info :

- It's the federal police and not the local police that demanded the people to evacuate the plane
- the plane is still in LGG waiting for the police/justice to do the necessary observations

> passengers became aggressive and threatening...
confirmed. The crew left because it was dangerous to stay it seems.

http://www.rtc.be/reportages/faits-dive ... ge-airport

[sean1982]

Thank you Cnc and thank you Nevhitha

[regi]

OK Sean and Nevitha, let us turn it upside down.: Do you think that Belgian justice would allow hijackers and hostage takers to walk free? We take this very seriously.

I don't need to be a aviation safety instructor to know that. ( without disrespecting your job ) I could have been a member of the armed forces under military command , responsable of airport/nuclear powerplant/special amunition depots protection. And I could be aware about the very clear and undoubtful rules of engagement with airplane hostage takers in Belgium. Rules that you are not aware about. Rules that you are not allowed to be informed about because your behaviour in a hijacking situation could interfere with the actions of the military and/or the airport police.
You read well that I use the word "could" to avoid any legal issue. But I can ask you this:
have you - as I have done in specific training for aviation situations - done shooting practice with a MAG and .50 on a airplane fuselage to see what happens inside the fuselage and at the exit points ? This is just to lift a tip of the veil that you are not aware about, and for which I have been trained. (years ago )
Accidentaly, I had last Friday evening a nice conversation with people on that level and it seems that the rules have not changed, and are even standarised all over the world more and more. ( the word "negotiation" doesn't appear in the manual, I can tell you that. And if it comes to the point, the involved miltary execute orders which have been given during the training. They do not obey the airport police as during normal guarding operations. So the order has been been given years ago.

So that is why I take that declaration of hi-jacking very seriously. The moment that the word hijacking appears, it becomes quite dangerous inside an airplane.
I just read now one of the latest messages that the federal police was already involved instead of the local police. This could be a sign that the procedure was rolling already - beyond the knowledge of the captain.

[regi]

You blame the passengers? Than you might have forgotten who pays your salary.
I am really surprised that you don't show any respect for the customers who had to undergo this treatment.

get real...
1: pax know this can happen when booking with FR
2: FR's OCC decide where to divert to, pilots can not override this just to please pax
3: crew is also 4 hours away from their station and want to go home
4: if pax don't show respect then they shouldn't get any back

i hope the hijackers get punished

• No, passengers don't know that this can happen.
  We just read that the pilot is the boss, so he decides. ( not my words...)
  Passengers were handled without respect and acted accordingly.

[grnkg]

OK, a lot of these responses just indicate to me you some of you really don't have a clue about how aviation works. If you think police assisting in a security matter like this is a waste off taxpayers money, no matter which country the aircraft is based in, then I can only regret that. I just hope your plane never gets hijacked somewhere over another country territory when you're flying on an OO-registred aircraft. We'll see if you then will still think that it is a waste off taxpayers money. I actually know the crew very well who was on the aircraft: one and a half hour long they were bombarded by nice little sentences like: salle flamand, fils de putte, I will kill you like a pig and what sexual comments were made against the girls I will not even type here.

Some people say: They shoudln't have taken off. Then it would be wrong as well, because how can you know that an airport is still gonna be foggy 3 hours after departure? On top of that the crew tried to divert to lille first; but they were packed so they didn't except them, next on the list was CRL, already closed, so then comes next on the list, LGG. If they would have just cancelled the flight the headline would have been: Ryanair dumps hundreds of passengers in Fez, or not?

To Regi's suggestion about using the slide? I'm not even gonna start to comment about that statement. The busses were waiting just outside the terminal pax caused themselves an extra 4.5 hours delay by not getting off. Maybe first learn someting about airline operations before making statements that make no sense at all

stij, I'm not talking about 4 baggies an 10 scratchcards. I'm talking perfumes, watches, all the food and drinks. So you think it's justified to do that after a diversion?? I feel I'm being ripped off by the government as well by paying taxes for things I don't want, the catholic church for example. Does that give me the right to go and raid the government buildings now to get my money back to compensate for my grief?? and on top of that telling to all the people that work there to fuck oof, that they are all sons of a bitch, and that I will kill them if they try to stop me? Why is it that people think this kind of behaviour is justified on board an aircraft?

Or maybe, just maybe these reactions are only here because we are talking about ryanair off course. If it would be a Brussels Airlines aircraft people would say that the behaviour of the pax was outrageous.

Pretty much the only sensible comment in this entire thread...

Kind regards,
GR.

[cathay belgium]

Hi,

The only sensible comment?
Nice stories but I translate :
An FR plane diverted to LGG instead of CDG for money reasons.
FR has the law and reason with them and mostly French pax behaved on a French way.
People knows this can happen on a FR flight but are to creapy to spend a penny more for fly a decent
airline and think they can change the world with agression.
The plane landed in Belgium so case closed,only a topic on aviation forums like these..
This is what happened.

CX-B

[HighInTheSky]

Sean1982, or another crew member from Ryanair, just a question,

how on earth can pax open the bars (Duty Free or BOB) when the damn things are locked with padlocks?

So there are a few possible explanations...
1: The bars were not padlocked (Ryanair policy?)
or
2: The crew left their keys on board when they disembarked (which would be a huge mistake )
or
3: The pax took the fire axe which is located in the flightdeck, but wasn't there a fire fighter "guarding" the flightdeck?

Ofcourse stealing is NEVER tolerable, but you don't have to put the cat with the milk neither...

[Nevihta]

mostly French pax behaved on a French way

Were the pax french ?
What is the french way of behaving ?

[cnc]

We just read that the pilot is the boss, so he decides. ( not my words...)

don't try to make a game out of this...
pilots follow orders from operations and only decide to chose an other option when there's a good valid reason to. don't you think the pilots would have preferred to land as close by as possible?

[Novastar]

mostly French pax behaved on a French way

Were the pax french ?
What is the french way of behaving ?

They were coming back from Fez... get the rest of the picture.

[NCB]

I think that the cause of the problem was Ryanair and more precisely, the crew.
Ryanair's policies make passengers behave the way they did here. Ryanair gets a lot of free publicity by being on newspapers for letting passengers down. But when passengers who read those articles become the victims, Ryanair gets to pay advertising costs.

What mistakes has Ryanair made:
-In many reports, it is said that the airport organised the coach transfer on its own initiative, not on Ryanair's request.
-Ryanair's crew knew about the Beauvais curfew better than anyone else. Passengers should have been informed of this problem before departure, so that they held that information and if able, take actions to prepare for a diversion.
-Ryanair diverted to LGG from Beauvais. CDG and ORY were alot closer and more convenient for alot of passengers.
A captain should not let his company dictate his actions. He must take financial and commercial factors into consideration but the safe completion of a flight, from boarding to de-boarding, and the safety and security of both the aircraft and its occupants should be his priority at all times.

Commercial pressure has brought this captain to take decisions that developed into a safety hazard for the aircraft and for its occupants. So he and only he should carry the responsibility for this incident.

-Additionally, the captain should not have left the aircraft and even less, the open cockpit unattended. This is a legal and moral responsibility. For instance, if the aircraft would have caught fire, he would have needed to assist the evacuation and coordinate with rescue personnel.

-Closing the toilet off is a sign that shows that the cabin crew was expecting a long lasting crisis and a clear sign of arrogance, provocation on their part.

The mistakes made by the police:
-They have failed to provide assistance to the crew, to maintain the security of the aircraft and its occupants. If the captain requests the assistance, the police must provide such assistance. The arrogance of the crew probably made the police officers get on the passenger's side. The territorial chit-chat no longer applies from the moment that the captain grants security personnel access to the aircraft.

The passengers have given the crew the same disrespect that they were given in the first place. Nowadays, it's the only way of getting your due justice back. Getting justice through the justice system takes time and money.
However, airport personnel should not have been disrespected, but this is an innocent mistake of passengers who see the airport and airline as one and the same system.

Sean, I think that your friends have had a bad day. Nevertheless, they have created the tension that escalated into this incident and only them are to blame for this. The other flights ended up fine probably because the crew was less arrogant and more helpful.

No matter how little they pay, they are your customer and deserve to be treated as such.

Finally, it must be admitted that Ryanair cabin crew are often arrogant. I'm sure that they are all great people but it's the company's way of working that makes them so arrogant when on duty. Ultimately, it's their own choice to accept such jobs and the passenger must not be expected to understand.