Ryanair passenger said she ‘almost died’ from asthma attack due to broken AC
An accountant aboard a Ryanair flight said she “almost died” when the airline “trapped” her on the grounded plane with a broken air conditioner as she suffered an asthma attack and fainted.
Charlaine Seaward, 24, was returning from a girls holiday in Tenerife, Spain, on Jan. 14 when she found herself stuck on a plane that was unable to take off due to an air conditioning fault, Kennedy News reported.
Seaward, of Wales, said that after 45 minutes in the stuffy cabin, she began to hyperventilate and have an asthma attack when her inhaler stopped working, causing her to pass out.
“As you can imagine 200 people breathing the same oxygen in and out for a THREE HOUR DELAY is very dangerous, ESPECIALLY when you have extreme health conditions,” Seaward wrote on Facebook. “I physically passed out and had to wear an oxygen tank because it was THAT bad.”
Seaward claimed the staff had refused to let her off the plane when she was asking to get fresh air, which only made her asthma attack worse.
“They told me they couldn’t take me off the plane because it was a health and safety hazard, but being on the plane was a health and safety hazard too,” she wrote.
After her pleas were denied, Seaward said she passed out and awoke to find an oxygen mask wrapped around her face as she was still inside the plane, which was delayed by two hours at that point.
While the staff allegedly gave her the option of exiting the plane at the point, Seaward said she stayed on board with the oxygen tank because she needed to work the next day and didn’t have a place to stay in Spain.
The accountant slammed the airline for boarding the passengers while allegedly knowing that the AC unit wasn’t working.
When Seaward filed a complaint against the airline, she said she was met with indifference as Ryanair allegedly claimed she was not on the flight that day and later awarded a $64 refund after she complained “every day for a month.”
Seaward said that while she received a refund for her seat, the airline has yet to fork over the $285 promised to her over the delay.
“Ryanair is an ABSOLUTE joke. DO NOT FLY WITH THEM. EVER. It’s all cheap and cheerful until they almost kill you and take zero responsibility,” she said in the post.
A Ryanair spokesperson said that because Seaward had traveled from Tenerife to Bristol, she was not entitled for a refund but would receive the $285 compensation since the flight was delayed for more than three hours.
“This flight from Tenerife to Bristol (14 Jan) was delayed ahead of take-off due to a minor technical issue with the aircraft,” the company said in a statement. “To minimize disruption, passengers remained onboard while engineers serviced the aircraft, during which time this passenger became ill, and crew requested medical assistance.
“This passenger was treated onboard and provided with oxygen and crew offered to disembark her, but she chose to stay on the flight and received medics’ clearance to do so,” the company added.
