It was a real flightmare.
A family’s first-ever Ryanair flight devolved into the trip from hell, complete with drunk passengers, a dirty cabin and a terrifying medical emergency that forced the pilot to divert to Portugal.
“What was meant to be the start of a relaxing family holiday turned into a stressful and frightening experience,” victim Viltė Jasmontė, 35, told Jam Press of the taxing saga.
The Brit, her husband Aidas Jasmontas, and their six-year-old daughter, Ariele, had been flying from Bristol, UK to the Canary Islands for a relaxing getaway in May.
However, their dream vacay got off to a rocky start after they were delayed for two hours due to technical problems that eventually forced them to board an entirely new plane.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg. According to Jasmontė, the replacement plane’s cabin was filthy and stocked with barely any food or water to sate the passengers for the four-hour trip.
“They only had Pringles, chocolate bars and cans of soft drinks for sale,” lamented the Southampton-based TikTok creator.
The carrier has come under fire before for featuring paltry in-flight offerings on international flights, with one Dublin-bound passenger comparing their tiny ham and cheese sandwich to something out of “Oliver Twist.”
To make matters worse, intoxicated-seeming flyers had been permitted to board and proceeded to cause a ruckus throughout the flight.
Things came to a head an hour and a half after takeoff when passengers started yelling that a woman had collapsed and needed medical assistance. The passenger had reportedly passed out and started convulsing before getting revived by a fellow passenger.
“Many people stood up from their seats, shouting and looking around, creating a very chaotic atmosphere,” recalled Jasmontė, whose family was sitting just three rows away from the victim.
After asking if there was a doctor aboard, the captain made the decision to make an emergency landing in Lisbon, where passengers remained on board for two hours waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
“Not exactly how I pictured the start of this holiday,” Jasmontė captioned a TikTok clip of the emergency vehicles driving across the tarmac.
The woman was eventually ferried to the hospital, after which the aircraft was inspected and cleared for takeoff, eventually landing at Gran Canaria at 1 a.m. — six hours behind schedule.
The fam arrived at their hotel two hours later.
Thankfully, this air Odyssey had a happy ending; Jasmontė claimed they ended up enjoying a restful getaway despite all the shenanigans in the sky.
