Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair has recently had to pay an innocent man roughly $10,700 in compensation after falsely accusing him of misbehaving on a flight he never boarded and adding him to a no-fly list, according to the Irish newspaper, The Journal.
Eoin Michael Cahill had reportedly booked a flight from Dublin to Copenhagen on the low-budget airline on Jan. 2, but he ultimately stayed in Ireland for work purposes.
The incident in question involved a passenger who got into an altercation with Ryanair staff, prompting intervention from airport police.
Ryanair had to pay a man roughly $10,700 in compensation after falsely accusing him of misbehaving on a flight he never boarded
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To Cahill’s surprise, he later learned that not only had Ryanair misidentified him with the disruptive passenger and barred him from flying with them in the future, but the airline had also sent an email to his employer, informing him of Cahill’s alleged unruly behavior.
When the man first complained to the carrier, Ryanair didn’t take back its decision to blacklist him, but the company then asked for more time to investigate, as per the Irish Independent.
Cahill then took the issue to the Irish High Court, accusing the airline of defamation.
Eoin Michael Cahill had reportedly booked a flight from Dublin to Copenhagen on the low-budget airline, but he ultimately stayed in Ireland for work purposes
Image credits: Ryanair
According to The Journal, Cahill, who works for Jones Engineering Group, regularly travels for work between Ireland and Denmark, so the accusations would’ve had disastrous consequences for his reputation and limited his travel options.
The judge was informed Tuesday (February 6) that the company wished to “sincerely and unreservedly” apologize to Cahill.
In the end, the mix-up ended up costing Ryanair a compensation of 10,000 euros ($10,700). The low-cost carrier, known for its rude and sarcastic responses to unsatisfied clients on social media, also offered to pay for Cahill’s legal costs and informed him that they would contact the innocent man’s employers, saying the accusations were “fully withdrawn.”
To Cahill’s surprise, the low-cost airline had added him to their no-fly list after mistaking him for the unruly passenger
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The case was closed on Tuesday, according to court records.
This isn’t the first time the airline has made headlines for being involved in disputes with clients.
In September of last year, a family was charged £165 to check in at the airport after being told by the airline that they had “unchecked themselves,” according to the BBC.
A regular flier, Damian Lloyd, had checked his family in a month in advance of his holiday to Gran Canaria, and he brought the printed boarding passes to the airport. But, upon arriving at the check-in desk, he was shocked to see that his, his wife’s, and his daughter’s boarding passes did not scan.
The Irish carrier group had also sent an email to Cahill’s employer, informing him of his alleged unruly behavior
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“He looked on the computer, and our names and seat numbers came up. But for some reason, [the boarding passes] weren’t scanning. He didn’t know why,” Lloyd said about the employee at the check-in desk before adding that the company “came up with every excuse under the sun” to charge him for what he had already paid for.
A similar situation took place in August when an elderly couple (79 and 80 years old) was charged £110 to print their tickets at the airport. This occurred after the pair, who were flying from Stansted Airport to Bergerac, France, mistakenly printed the wrong tickets.
Ryanair ultimately offered the innocent man their “sincere” apologies and paid for his legal costs
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In 2018, Ryanair received backlash for apparently refusing to remove a passenger from a flight after he racially abused a 70-year-old woman who came to the UK from Jamaica.
“It was very loud and very aggressive. He started to shout at the woman, saying ‘get out of the way,’ ‘move your feet,’ ‘you shouldn’t be sitting here,'” a witness who filmed the incident described.
The victim’s mother referred to the passenger’s words as the “most disgusting exchange of racial slurs and foul language.”
“It’s called getting your facts straight,” one social media user wrote
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