Unbelievable: Budapest–Corfu Ryanair flight landed at a different location
Hungarian passengers were on the plane for six hours. Eventually, the plane landed at a different location than planned. People travelling with the Ryanair flight arrived in Greece nearly ten hours late. Ultimately, the plane flew to Corfu without them, while passengers had to take a bus or a ferry to the Greek island.
A series of awful events
One of the passengers shared their story with Blikk. The Hungarian family wanted to travel to Corfu from Budapest with Ryanair’s FR 8054 flight. The plane was supposed to depart at 9:35 AM, however, they were late. Passengers had to wait and sit for over two hours on the plane. The captain announced that there was no space in Corfu. Therefore, the Ryanair flight would not be able to land. The plane only took off at 11:30 AM.
The passenger who shared this story usually checks the GPS while flying. This time was no different, but the passenger was surprised to see that the plane had passed Corfu. The captain made an announcement again, saying they would not be able to land in Corfu, as the airport still did not have enough capacity.
Getting to Corfu
The plane eventually landed in another Greek city, Preveza, at 2:15 PM. After this eventful trip, passengers had to stay onboard for one more hour, as the airport lacked staff. At 3:30 PM, people finally managed to get off the plane and were led into the check-in terminal. This means that people spent about six hours on the plane, which was very hard for the children especially.
Despite this horrible experience, the Ryanair staff was very helpful and tried to give updates to passengers. Although the plane landed, people still needed to go to Corfu. At 5 PM, passengers were informed that there would be buses to the port from where they would be ferried to Corfu. This went surprisingly smoothly, but passengers only arrived in Corfu late at night.
The plane left for Corfu without its passengers
While passengers were waiting patiently, the plane took off without them and flew to Corfu from Perveza. People were waiting for that flight in Corfu as well, as they wanted to return home after their holiday. Naturally, this flight was also late (by 4.5 hours). This left people wondering why Ryanair could not take them to Corfu, the original destination if the plane would go there anyway. The passenger wrote:
We chose this flight to have a whole afternoon in addition to our time there. As we arrived in Corfu at 10 PM and the car rental closed at that time, we were in a very awkward situation. We had to take a taxi, which was quite expensive.
Compensation from Ryanair
Passengers were happy with how organised and smooth the bus and ferry trips were. However, they did not receive any kind of compensation for this trip which turned into a nightmare. The only thing that they received was a EUR 4 coupon for snacks and drinks. The family ended up losing precious time from their Greek holiday and a lot of money.