Travel Chaos: Ryanair Flight Disrupted by Missing Fuel Truck

Hours spent waiting, tossed from one counter to another. Information that was nonexistent, and the plane that didn’t appear to land. It was supposed to be a shopping day on Regent Street, a quick visit to Piccadilly, and dinner in Soho. The first day of a four-day holiday in London. Instead, it became a day spent at the airport, ending with a bus trip to Genoa.

A bitter start to the holiday for six residents of Mantua: Catia Zantedeschi, 23 years old, her boyfriend, Alessandro Motta, 27, from Goito, her aunts Carla and Daniela Zantedeschi, from Marmirolo, and two cousins Marco Sissa, 16, and Nicola Mora, 17, from Rodigo, who were scheduled to board at Montichiari at 10:10 a.m. on a flight to London Stansted operated by the Irish airline Ryanair.

Disruptions and diversions of the plane

The plane, a Boeing, was unable to land at Montichiari to board the 160 passengers headed for London: the fire brigade’s fuel truck was missing from the runway. Without this safety measure, Boeing aircraft are not permitted to land. The plane was diverted to Treviso: from there, it departed for England with no one onboard.

Some passengers, the luckiest, were transported from Montichiari to Turin, where they departed for London late in the afternoon. Others were loaded onto a bus to Genoa, from where they could only depart last night at 8 p.m. “A nightmare,” summarizes Catia Zantedeschi, “especially because no Ryanair staff was at the airport informing us of what was happening.”

Passengers’ impressions and decisions

The facts: on the display board, an initial delay of one hour is shown. After a while, rumors spread that the flight was blocked for safety reasons. Then confirmation comes: the plane was diverted to Treviso, without the airline, according to what was told to customers, knowing anything about it.

From there, proposals were made to the passengers: Turin and Genoa. On what basis? “Crazy,” says Catia, “at first they said the first 60 people who checked in at Montichiari would go to Turin, then they changed it: first groups, then families with children under 12. We, who had in front of us a rugby team of 32 people and a family with five children, went to Genoa.”