Chantelle sent a message to Michael O’Leary – CEO, Ryanair – Email Address that said:
Whom it may concern.
I am sending this e-mail to express my utter disappointment and annoyance i have recently experienced with Ryanair. firstly i would like to say that myself and my husband fly with Ryanair to most of our holiday destinations and have never had a bad experience. your flights are always on time, the staff are always friendly and all in all it is a pleasant experience. However on 28th April 2016 i was booked along with 25 other people on one of your flights to Alicante for a hen weekend. On 27th April my friend that has booked this weekend for everyone was informed that our flight was cancelled due to the strikes in the french and german Airports. she immediately went into talks with Ryan air and on the beach about this to try and arrange alternative flights. Ryanair then told her they were unable to find alternative flights and that we would be refunded the flight amount for the outgoing flight. the problem was we did not get told this until the morning of the 28th the day we were due to go. she then expressed her disappointment and recieved a call to say we MAY get our return flight refunded too. Fair enough Ryanair are probably going to refund our money but i feel i need to ask the question of surely you knew about these strikes more than 18hours in advance??. this holiday was planned for a year and personally myself i have not planned a holiday with my family this year as we could not afford for myself to go away and a family holiday. my husband insisted that i go on this break as it would be nice for me to get away with my girlfriends and paid for it for me as a birthday present as it was my birthday on the day we were due to go. the outcome of this was that Ryanair offered no alternative flights so the morning we were due to go we were frantically trying to find flights. we had to cancel the original holiday or we would have lost too much money and the end result was that half the group were able to re-book expensive flights for the next day and go on the holiday whilst losing a nights stay and having to rebook a new hotel. Personally myself i could not afford to do this therefore losing my holiday and being left with a case containing new clothes, two fancy dress outfits and Euros that i recieved as birthday presents that i will lose money on exchanging. Ryanair should surely be able to offer alternative flights when these things happen or at least not wait so long to tell us they cant!! there were no cheap flights left from anywhere by the time we were informed. i feel very upset and deflated at not being able to go on this holiday there was lots of hard work and planning went into making it possible and i find it hard to believe that there was no back up plan in place by Ryanair. All of the other Airlines were flying to this destination and i know a strike is nobodys fault but surely an airline of your size should be able to do more than say "sorry there is nothing we can do but give you a refund" (MAYBE on the return flight too you have said!!). My friend who has booked the holiday is dealing with this but i wanted to express my concern too and explain the stress and devastation this has caused me personally. one whole year of planning for nothing and no holiday at all this year to show for all the money i have spent.
Come on Ryanair!! you can do better than this surely! always been so happy with you up to now but i feel you need to get some back up plans in place!
Yours faithfully
Chantelle
