Ryanair sacks six crew members in fake photo row
Ryanair has sacked six cabin crew members who released a staged photo of themselves allegedly sleeping on the floor of a Spanish airport office during a flight delay.
An airline spokesman confirmed today that the Portuguese crew had been dismissed on Monday for gross misconduct.
The image had been widely shared online, which Ryanair said had damaged its reputation and caused an ‘irreparable breach of trust’ with the six crew members.
The photo was taken after more than 20 crew members were stranded at Malaga airport when their Porto-bound flights were diverted due to bad weather on October 14.
Posting the image online, staff claimed that it showed members of the crew had been forced to sleep on the floor because adequate accommodation hadn’t been provided.
However, Ryanair later released CCTV footage which revealed that the photo had been staged. At the time, it said: "The crew spent a short period of time in the crew room before being moved to a VIP lounge, and returned to Porto the next day."
The Portuguese union, SNPVAC, had earlier disagreed with Ryanair’s version of events, claiming that crew members had to remain in the crew room from 01:30 to 06:00 ‘without minimum rest facilities’.
The union said that crew members were left ‘without access to food, drinks and even a place to sit down, as there were only eight seats available for the crew’. SNPVAC said staff weren’t moved to a VIP lounge until 06:00.
In a statement released today, Ryanair said: "All six cabin crew members in Porto were dismissed on November 5 for breach of contract on grounds of gross misconduct, after staging a fake photograph to support a false claim (widely reported in international media outlets) that they were ‘forced to sleep on the floor’ of the Malaga crew room, which was behaviour which damaged their employer’s reputation and caused an irreparable breach of trust with these six persons."
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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