Ryan Air Six hour delay, won't pay for hotel, but did gave us 5 euro for a sandwich

12 hours from when I arrived at the airport to when I arrived at the hotel, thank you Ryan Air for feeding me.

Great retreat in Spain but unfortunately the return flight with Ryan Air was delayed by around six hours.

Of course no information from Ryan Air until an hour or so before departure so everyone was already at the airport for the 3pm flight, in fact most of us had been there two hours earlier as per the recommendations.

So back we went out of the departure lounge and a long long queue at the Ryan Air desk. Information very sketchy from Ryan Air, some where given a handout, a letter with a fax number. We had the option of cancelling the flight and supposedly getting a full refund, waiting for the delayed flight, six hours which meant getting into London Stansted at 2AM or staying in Valencia for two days for the next Ryan Air flight with seats but that too was a late flight so I decided to stick around for my original Ryan Air flight whatever time it finally turned up.

We were given to understand by the Ryan Air desk that we could claim for staying in a hotel that night, one woman seemed to get the idea that she could get a taxi back to Cambridge from London and claim that back from Ryan Air, at 2am that would cost a small fortune.

I managed to book the cheapest room I could find on line at London Stansted airport, £44 plus £9 for the airport shuttle too and from the airport.

So I sent in my claim form to Ryan Air and just received a response back saying that I'm not entitled to claim for the hotel as the delay was beyond their control. They did point out however that they had generously given me a food and beverage voucher.

Indeed they did, it was for five euro which paid for the only vegetarian option at the only authorised vender, a cheese salad sandwich plus half a coffee.


So considering I had arrived as per Ryan Air's recommendation two hours before my flight, with the six hour delay and the flight it was 12 hours before I arrived at the cheap hotel that Ryan Air decided not to compensate me for where of course everything was closed.

Needless to say I won't be flying with Ryan Air again, perhaps Easy Jet and Monarch are no better you don't know how somebody will look after you until such a situation arises.