Every two weeks it’s payday for our clients. In this instalment 1495 duped passengers will receive financial compensation. A group of 26 passengers who were on a Ryanair flight from Eindhoven (Netherlands) to Alicante were particularly impacted.

Escaping the cold winter

Ryanair finds itself in a costly predicament as it is mandated to pay compensation to passengers affected by a delayed flight caused by an intoxicated steward. This incident led to domino effect of time loss for the passengers.

The incident took place on November 20, 2022, when a scheduled Ryanair flight was en route from Eindhoven to Alicante, a place in Spain. As winter temperatures plummeted to -8.8°C in The Netherlands, many passengers couldn’t wait for the warmth of the Mediterranean Sea.

However, the flight took off later than scheduled and eventually arrived at its destination in Alicante with a delay of 3 hours and 34 minutes. This delay was attributed to an alcohol control operation conducted by the police at Eindhoven Airport, during which a steward was found to have consumed an excessive amount of alcohol.

Alcohol makes for an expensive lesson

The steward was fined 1000 euros for registering a breath alcohol content of 140 micrograms per liter, equivalent to 0.32% blood alcohol concentration. The police noted that this indicated that the steward had boarded the aircraft while under the influence. As per regulations, flight personnel are prohibited from consuming alcohol within ten hours of their scheduled flight time.

To rectify the situation, substitute personnel had to be flown in, leading to the subsequent flight delay.

Given the delay of over 3 hours and the flight distance exceeding 1500 km between Eindhoven and Alicante, the affected passengers are entitled to a compensation of 400 euros each. This compensation is specifically intended to address the time loss experienced by passengers and not for covering the cost of the flight ticket.

While the exact ticket prices from the previous year remain unknown, current ticket prices for a similar flight on November 20, 2023, from Eindhoven to Alicante with Ryanair stand at 43 euros.

Thus, the 400 euros per passenger compensation represents a substantial amount.

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