The family missed their vacation and lost 1,500 to 1,500 after they failed to board the plane due to chaos at the airport. There were huge queues at UK airports for several days as people tried to take the Easter holiday, and staff couldn’t handle it.
Michelle Donoghue, 32, is planning a four-day trip to Rome with her husband Robert and 12-year-old son. The vacation was the family’s first trip abroad since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but after missing her flight in long lines, Michelle and her family were forced to return home.
The family will depart from Manchester Airport from Ryanair on Tuesday at 7:15 am. They were supposed to arrive at the airport just four hours before leaving the house at three in the morning. But as soon as they arrived, they were immediately greeted by a “nightmare” view of the endless lines.
The family had already printed their boarding pass at home, but still had to wait in line for self-check-in and security. Due to the number of passengers, staff have opened other lanes. “A lady came and took us in a big group and took us away, and then we stopped, and she was on her radio and then she said, ‘The place I was going to is now closed,'” Michelle told LancsLive. “
“They opened a dead end for us, and then people started passing people, and they brought my husband back with about four or five people. People panicked and then we went to the safety line and stopped. It was like hours and hours and hours.”
During the layover, the staff urged everyone who had ten minutes to fly to come forward, which meant that the queue stopped again to meet these passengers. After 6 p.m., Michelle began to worry as her flight approached, but said she was calm because she managed to enter the entrance to the security department not far from where they were standing in line.
The time was getting closer and closer, but I could see where you put all your stuff on the drawers, so all we had to do now was go over there, but it stopped again. It seemed like people were overfilling the drawers and stopped. “The whole conveyor belt,” Michelle said.
“We were about 10 people from the stairs, from five to seven [20 minutes before their flight] – and the radio was going to one of the workers “Everyone who has flown into seven quarters must pass now.” But he couldn’t understand it, so I yelled at him, forgive me, call seven quarters.
“I showed him the boarding pass, he let us in and then we went to the other row of stairs only, so that there were four people in the rear and then there were four rows to one. People came forward and this old man jumped forward. The stairs were my unfortunate son in a panic.”
Michelle and her family went through security, but being in Terminal 1 meant they had to rush to the gate to get to Terminal 1 at 7.10pm. At that point, they learned they were late closing the gate at 6:45 a.m., but Michelle said staff assured them that the flight crews knew what was happening and that the plane wouldn’t go without them. The husband and son’s first glance upon arriving at the gate was the first to confirm that the family had missed their flight, but they weren’t the only ones gathering a group of about 20 people at the gate.
We were told that the plane wouldn’t let you go, you were gone, and this gate closed at quarter past seven, but we said, “We’re here for four and a half hours.” They said “I know, but that’s how it is”. Ryanair is not to blame. “More people dropped out and it turns out there were 20 of us left on that list,” Michelle said.
Michele was then asked to wait 30 minutes as staff tried to provide her family with a flight to Milan and a bus ride to Rome.
“He’s gone, I came back here at eight, we went to get drunk, called the family and came back ten minutes later. He never came back,” said Michelle.
Security lines at Manchester Airport
Another member of the group of 20 told Michel that there was a second table they had to go to to arrange the flight, as they met another big queue. Due to emergency medical treatment with the passenger, which should not have been his flight, the group witnessed the return of the plane to Manchester Airport.
Michelle and family were again disappointed, thinking they would be able to take off, as they were told the pilot had not yet given them permission to arrive due to the numbers and baggage they had already sorted.
They were all released from the trip to meet someone, and we said, ‘We can sit down now, we’re here’. Although it wasn’t our fault and he said no, I actually spoke to and with the rider. “I won’t let you go,” he said, “he already has his numbers.”
The flight didn’t take place until 9:11 a.m., as the family and the rest of the group were unable to take their seats on the plane. Instead, they made requests to take their bags, as another painful experience awaited them.
After waiting another 20 minutes for luggage to arrive, Michelle said she saw “hundreds and hundreds of other people’s bags” left behind, some with flight recordings last Friday (April 1). Then one of the employees told him that the location of their bags was unknown.
“He was shocked. I don’t know where your bags are, I didn’t say anything,” she said.
“It was just an absolute nightmare. You can see the employees are overworked and doing two or three jobs at a time and there was such a thing that when they delegated a job, they were fine, happy and able to do it. But at one point, the guy let in People and another employee told him he stopped letting people go and he said I have a lot of people in the hangout and he said I have a lot of people here.
“It hurts, it makes me go to this airport and it feels like it’s going to last a long time, and it’s not easy to fix. People were falling apart, the girl was getting medical help, and we were in a group. They were so angry – the Italian family was trying to go home.”
Michele and her husband paid 1500 1500 for the trip and until we were able to make up for activities booked in Rome her travel insurance would not be able to pay for the trip due to unprecedented circumstances so he missed his trip. Instead, he now had to fill out a complaint form and contact Manchester Airport.
A Manchester Airport spokesperson said: “We apologize to travelers whose experience at Manchester Airport over the past few days has not lived up to expectations. Our industry is facing challenges in terms of expanding operations very quickly, following the removal of Covid restrictions, which have caused massive damage to our industry over the past two years.
“We are actively undertaking hundreds of new security roles, but we are alerting passengers that due to staff shortages they may have to wait longer than usual in the coming weeks and that they should arrive. The first time their airline has recommended it.
“We understand that airlines and third-party service providers face similar challenges on our site and we work with them to provide the best possible experience in a given situation.
LancsLive has contacted Ryanair for comment but received no response prior to publication.
Source: Belfastlive
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
