Ryanair has ignited a war of words with the Spanish Air Traffic Control after it branded a decision to prevent planes from landing at Palma de Mallorca airport as “nonsensical.”
The decision was taken on Thursday following storms on the island and left hundreds of passengers’ flights cancelled.
Many ended up sleeping on the floor as they faced hours of delays for a rescheduled flight. Ryanair apologised for the disruption but stopped short of accepting fault as it directed flight at the islands air traffic control authorities who it said made a “nonsensical” decision that “made no sense given there were no weather issues in Palma.”
The airline said passengers were able to leave Palma but were not able to arrive whilst airline bosses described the ‘weather issues’ as ‘non-existent’.
In a statement posted online on Thursday, Ryanair said: “Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (15 Aug) apologised to its passengers for the excessive delays and cancellations at Palma de Mallorca following the nonsensical decision by Spanish Air Traffic Control (ATC) to block inbound aircraft from landing this morning due to ‘weather’, which makes no sense given there were no weather issues in Palma this morning as confirmed by the fact that flights departing Palma were allowed to continue as normal.
“Passengers were allowed to leave Palma de Mallorca but those coming on holiday were not allowed to arrive. Ryanair has been unable to contact the Head of Spanish ATC this morning to reverse this nonsensical decision and now calls on the Spanish Minister of Transport to explain why Palma de Mallorca was closed for arriving passengers due to non-existent weather issues.”
Ryanair’s Chief Ops Officer, Neal McMahon said: “This is the latest example of terrible Air Traffic Control performance this summer, which has caused repeated and unnecessary disruption to passengers. Ryanair once again calls on Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, to reform the shambolic ATC services.”
Spanish authorities hit back calling the criticism “unacceptable” and defending the decision as being based on “public safety reasons.”
Easyjet also apologised for the disruption, although they were more muted in their opinion of Spanish authorities.
The airline said: “The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is our highest priority and while these circumstances are outside of our control, we are sorry for any difficulty or inconvenience caused by this.
“We would like to reassure you that we are doing everything possible to minimise the impact of the disruption and are working hard to ensure our customers reach their destination safely.”
Spanish islands were battered by storms last week which led to flooding and displacement. In Menorca, the Civil Guard were deployed to resuce 16 people trapped in their homes whilst the centre of the island was declared a ‘disaster zone’ by the Spanish government.