Friday Ryanair Prestwick Flights

[Brightspark]

Before anyone shoots me down, I have placed this topic here as it will get more exposure than the flight section
(Hopefully this is ok with Admin)

I am starting this thread
1. for information and people's previous experience with Ryan€ir
2. To try and get hold of the 600 ish passengers effected by the 2 flights (to and from) and if they have made any progress with claiming anything back (haha)

Basically the flight bound for Fuerteventura from Prestwick took off no problem as far as I know on time, but had technical problems when in the air and had to diverted to Faro, the passengers were grounded for 3 hours while a new plane was found and a new crew.
When this was sorted the new plane then took off in Faro but was then struck by lightning and had to land again in Faro!
After a couple more hours the plane took off again after safety checks but by this time it was too late for them to land in Fuerteventura due to flight curfews and eventually had to land in Tenerife.

Hell for those passengers no doubt.

Meanwhile waiting in Fuerteventura airport from 5pm only to be told at 10:30pm that the flight was cancelled we were then told to collect our luggage and make our way to the ryan€ir desk to await further instructions...
Awaiting further instructions took us through to 1:30am where in the end me and the mrs + baby left as we were one of the lucky ones that could sort out accommodation and transport thanks to the mother!

I found out that the other passengers that did wait around for assistance from Ryan€ir eventually got a coach from the airport to various different hotels at around 3:30am

We were told that any expenses that we had for sorting out taxis/accommodation would be compensated by Ryanair

Anyone else ever been in a similar situation or had to claim against ryan€ir before and has any advice at all?

Also would like to hear from any other passengers affected by the 2 flights, I got to know most of them on the 2nd flight as we spent so much time together watching the DELAYED sign!

[Brightspark]

Forgot to add, our flight was rescheduled for Saturday 12pm

Was DELAYED but eventually took off at 2:30pm

[tmacl]

On Friday we got to Prestwick early only to watch the wings of the plane being de-iced. We took off and headed out over Portugal and were 30 minutes south  by Morocco when I noticed a man in a ryanair uniform reading a book. It turned out to be the co-pilot and then the captain announced there was a fault with the aircraft and we were going back to Faro. 30 minutes later we were circling Faro then spent 45 minutes burning fuel. We had a very heavy landing with fire tenders all along the runway but there was another plane ready for us so we transferred. About 70 minutes later we took off again only to be hit by lightning in the climb out of Faro.  I thought somone had taken a flash photo!!  After about 15 minutes the captain told us we were going back to Faro. Another plane, another change which we complted in about an hour and we set off for Fuerty at 10pm. Fuerty airport has a curfew  and we were making good progress when we were told we couldn't land and we circled for about 30 minutes before we were diverted to Tenerife .

Got there at 1am and our flight was taking off at 7am. The bus to the hotel was 40 minutes so we deceided to spend the night sleeping on a bench at the airport. Got up and arrived here at 8am on saturday morning. Coming up the road it was white just like back home - only it was sand blowing over the road.

The crew were absolutely fantastic although operating under St Michaels rules.  Safety was the first priority although to listen to some of my fellow passengers they would have rather carried on to Fuerty despite having firstly a faulty aircraft and then an aircraft that could have been damaged by the lightning strike and could not believe there was any reason why we should not land.  Their disreagard for the crew was shocking and I did fear that something serious could have happened.

We didn't get a second crew until the second departure from Faro but it was the original who tended to us and I believe the second crew was required for the return flight as the last thing you want is a pilot who was unable to fly back within the accepted international regulations.

So while there was a delay it was caused by the crew and others taking their responsibilities for the passengers safety and to try and decrease the inconvenience for the return flight.  The lightning strike was the reason they were unable to depart on the friday as we would have been in Fuerty after the first plane change about 9pm.

All in all a set of circumstances which were very well handled by the company and the crew.  The curfew at Fuerteventura was the reason that there was an over night stop.  The handling agents in Tenerife may not have had as much information as some may have liked as fast as they may have liked but everything happened and to find hotel rooms for so many at such short notice and for such a short time was all that could have been expected.

So that was the Friday flight from Prestwick.....

[Brightspark]

It's interesting to hear from someone on the flight coming over, everyone on the return flight felt although we were hard done by you guys were far worse off!

I will totally agree that the treatment overall received from the staff of Ryan€ir was good, even though most of the staff had actually decided to go home and chose not to deal with the problems. It did seem that the fault and the blame was to be aimed at offices back in Dublin and indeed St Michael.
Yes it would be very difficult to arrange hotels and coaches at that time of night but for an airline to run regular routes to these destinations why is there not a back up plan of sorts in place?

The problems on your flight Tmacl do seem unfortunate circumstances that many of which probably couldn't have been helped.
On the return flight there seems to be more issues that were created by un-organised policies and processes.

[westerdon]

Hi Brightspark, my Wife and my self were due to fly to Prestwick on Friday also, as time went on  it became clear that the flight was not going to happen that night, if they had told us earlier thatthe airport had a11pm curfew we could have arranged a hotel ourselves instead of listening to load of bull,wife and i managed to get a hotel in Calete about 1am,

About compensation we will send a copy of Hotel invoice and Taxi receipt to the address that Ryanair gave us so we will see what happens
.

[fifi]

Gosh what a long delay. Glad everyone got sorted out allright. You can check the compensation rules here to see if they apply...... http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays