RyanAir at is best :

From
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independ…&issue_id=12983

STRANDED Ryanair passengers were forced to hire a bus and drive 600 miles
home after their flight was cancelled and they were told that the next
aircraft out of a French airport would be in 10 days.

The 51 holidaymakers, led by a Belgian window cleaner, clubbed together to
rent a vehicle for ?4,000 after the no-frills airline announced their flight
from Carcassonne, France, to Charleroi airport, Brussels, would not
be replaced.

The passengers, mostly Belgians but including five Britons and 15 Germans,
were told upon arriving at the airport last week that their flight to
Charleroi had been cancelled due to bad weather. Their aircraft had been
diverted to nearby Perpignan during a storm and there was no time to
transfer them to that airport before the plane made the return journey,
empty, the company said.

“They abandoned us there as if we were dogs,” said Gauthier Renders, the
28-year-old window cleaner from Brussels. “There were children there and
even an old woman with a walking stick. They didn’t even give us a glass of
water. At the Ryanair desk they said there were no available flights before
September 15. Everything was fully booked.

“They said that some of us could get home via Gerone in Spain but that was
200 miles away and there were only 15 places available. They also said they
wouldn’t pay for us to get there. So I looked for a bus in the Yellow Pages
and we were on the road by 9pm.”

The bus company provided two drivers and, after a 16-hour drive, the coach
arrived in Belgium, on Tuesday.

“They don’t care about the bad publicity; they know they are a cheap airline
and that people will use them again just because they are cheap. But not me:
my wife and I will never fly Ryanair again,” Mr Renders said.

He added: “I collected the names and numbers of the other passengers and as
soon as I got back I phoned my lawyer. I thought we could take them to
court, but he said there was not much point as some people only paid 5 euros
and
the legal fees would be much higher than that.”

David Gering, Ryanair’s commercial director in Belgium, said: “Ryanair is
the company which cancels the fewest flights in Europe, though we do
occasionally have to due to technical problems or bad weather. In the case
of a cancellation our policy is to reimburse or offer a seat on the next
available flight.”

A spokesman for Charleroi airport said: “The subsequent flights were all
fully booked and Ryanair did not want to spend the money sending a
replacement aircraft.”

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