A passenger stuck in 26-hour long delays returning from Rhodes arrived in Manchester only to be trapped on the tarmac after his flight finally landed.
Andrew Barlow, from Reddish, Stockport, faced a battle to get home after an 11-night holiday on the Greek island with his wife and friends. He said passengers were getting ready to board the Ryanair plane at Rhodes airport on Friday night, before then being told their flight would not go ahead that evening.
It was not until 11.30pm on Saturday that the FR9077 Ryanair plane eventually took off, 26 hours after the initial flight time. Once it finally landed back in Manchester, in the early hours of Sunday, Andrew then claims passengers were left on the tarmac for an hour due to a ground staff shortage. He eventually arrived home in Stockport shortly before 6am.
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Speaking after landing, he told the M.E.N : "There was no stand for us to get off, you'd have thought after such a delay we would have been given priority.
"We were stopped in the taxi stage and they told us there was no gate for us to go to, so we were sat there for around an hour. Then we were told there was no ground staff to open the doors and let us off.
"Eventually we got off after a tug came to pull us to the gate at Terminal 3, about an hour later. But then they had to transport us to Terminal 1 as they said there was nobody on passport control in that terminal.
"Everyone was worried about getting their bags but luckily they didn't take too long, and we got home at around 6am this morning. I am just happy to be home.
"Why put us on the first plane initially if there was a fault, just to then put us in a hotel?"
It comes after Andrew described how passengers had been allowed on what was meant to be their rescheduled flight home, at 1pm, but that they were informed of a technical issue and were turfed off as they waited for another aircraft.
Speaking on Saturday, he said: "We left the hotel at 6pm yesterday and have been at the airport nearly 24 hours. Everyone is fed up. I've never experienced anything like this. I should have been home last night. It's put a blemish on the whole holiday."
Ryanair said the initial flight had to be cancelled due to a 'minor technical issue' with the aircraft and apologised to passengers for the inconvenience. Swissport said they worked to get passengers off the plane as fast as they could.
The M.E.N understands there were issues with the allocation of a stand following the landing, and delays with available border force personnel which required passengers to move terminals.
A spokesperson for the airline said: “This flight from Rhodes to Manchester (05 Aug) was delayed overnight due to a minor technical issue with the aircraft. Overnight accommodation was provided for all affected passengers and five sets of vouchers were issued.
"All passengers received regular updates via SMS/email. This flight departed the following day (06 Aug). Ryanair sincerely apologises to affected passengers for the inconvenience caused.”
A Swissport spokesperson said: “This flight was scheduled to land at 15:25 but instead arrived at 03:00 the following day. We realise the extra wait was frustrating but worked closely with our airline partner to get passengers off the plane as soon as we could."
A government spokesperson said:“Border Force’s number one priority is to keep our borders safe and secure for all passengers, and we will not compromise on this.
“Wait times in airports can be caused by a number of factors outside of the control of Border Force and most border control queue times are no longer than 30 minutes. Terminal 3 at Manchester Airport is open in line with the published airline operating schedule, the other Terminals remain open 24/7.”
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