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Ryanair sacks six cabin crew members pictured 'sleeping' on airport floor

Ryanair has sacked six cabin crew members who were pictured sleeping on a Spanish airport floor l...
Newstalk
Newstalk

18.55 6 Nov 2018


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Ryanair sacks six cabin crew m...

Ryanair sacks six cabin crew members pictured 'sleeping' on airport floor

Newstalk
Newstalk

18.55 6 Nov 2018


Share this article


Ryanair has sacked six cabin crew members who were pictured sleeping on a Spanish airport floor last month.

The photo went viral after the crew accused the airline of leaving them stranded in the airport staffroom overnight with no food, drink or place to sleep.

Ryanair said the photograph was "staged" to support what it said was a false claim they were ‘forced to sleep on the floor’

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It said all six have now been sacked for gross misconduct that damaged the airline’s reputation.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “All six cabin crew members in Porto were dismissed on Mon Nov 5th 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 6 persons.”

The photo was originally posted to the ‘Ryanair Must Change’ group on Facebook with the caption: “This is Porto crew last night stranded on the floor of Málaga crew room. They were diverted due to the storm and the company left them there.”

Ryanair initially apologised to the crew members – noting that it was a Spanish holiday at the time, with hotels in Malaga fully booked.

It said they were later moved to the VIP lounge.

However, it later released CCTV footage which it said proved that the photo was “staged.”

The Portuguese airline union SNPVAC said 24 crew members were sent to the room after the flight was diverted.

It said the crew had no access to food, drinks or even a place to sit down.

It said the Ryanair CCTV “did us all a favour by providing evidence that in fact there were no minimum conditions for their employees to spend the night with dignity.”

“Ryanair demonstrated that everything we published was true,” it said.


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