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Ryanair Accused Of Making Staff Sleep On Floor Due To Stormy Weather

Ryanair Accused Of Making Staff Sleep On Floor Due To Stormy Weather

The budget airline has disputed the claims, saying that the photo is ‘clearly staged’

Jess Hardiman

Jess Hardiman

Ryanair has come under fire after being accused of making staff sleep on the floor in Malaga, Spain, due to recent stormy weather.

Tagging Ryanair's Chief Operations Officer, Peter Bellew, one social media user wrote:

But the budget airline has disputed the claims, saying that the photo is 'clearly staged' and asserting that no staff had been forced to sleep on the floor.

In a statement, Ryanair said: "This picture is clearly staged and no crew 'slept on the floor'. Due to storms in Porto (13 October) a number of flights diverted to Malaga and as this was a Spanish national holiday, hotels were fully booked.

"The crew spent a short period of time in the crew room before being moved to a VIP lounge, and returned to Porto the next day (none of the crew operated flights)."

The SNPVAC union, which represents Portuguese airline crews, disagrees with the version of events outlined in Ryanair's statement.

PA

Instead, the union claims that crew members had been made to stay in the room between 1.30am and 6am 'without minimum rest facilities'.

"They had no other choice, as the photo illustrates, than to attempt to rest on the room's floor," the union said, the BBC reports.

"It is the legal responsibility of the airline to provide suitable accommodation, namely a hotel room,so that crew can perform their rest under the national and European legal requirements, in order to be able to operate the following duty safely," SNPVAC added.

"SNPVAC will produce a formal complaint to all the relevant civil aviation authorities and we expect an urgent and robust intervention so that events like this won't happen again."

While the union can confirm that staff had been moved to a VIP lounge at 6am, as per Ryanair's statement, it says that crew members still had no access to food or drinks.

According to the BBC, Ryanair has not commented on the union's claims that staff were left without adequate refreshments.

Peter Bellew responded to the claim on Twitter by confirming that all hotels had been booked up writing: "Unfortunately. All hotels were completely booked out in Malaga. The storm created huge damage in Portugal. Later after this the crew moved to VIP lounge.

"Apologies to the crew we could not find accommodation."

Featured Image Credit: Jim Atkinson/PA

Topics: News, travel, UK