In the middle of last month, Ryanair cancelled flights to and from airports across Europe in the dead of night and alerted passengers of the changes via email. More than 12 hours later it started sending them follow-up emails announcing their flights were not actually cancelled at all.
The airline’s error left some passengers who made alternative arrangements with other airlines in the meantime frustrated and fearing they would be left out of pocket.
At the time, Ryanair said the issue had been caused by a “a tech glitch” impacting “a tiny few” passenger and told Pricewatch that anyone who can show they booked alternative flights with other airlines would not be “out of pocket” as they can claim a full refund.
Frances Maguire contacted us last week to say that, despite the assurances from the Ryanair spokeswoman, it was “not dealing with the issue for me”.
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“Following their cancellation email regarding my lunchtime flights on February 1st, 2025, for three people received at 0.35 on November 15th, I initially tried to rebook with Ryanair for earlier in the morning on the same date, which would have left them with the business,” she writes.
She says the site would not allow her make the booking on the date she was looking at, while her original booking was not showing “and therefore the ‘claim refund’ link was not working on my app on the day of the glitch”.
She says that the travelling party had accommodation confirmed “so I had no alternative but to book with Aer Lingus. I rebooked with Aer Lingus for the same dates at an additional cost of €112. I had been told in Ryanair’s email that a refund option would get my money back on completion of the refund claim,” she says.
“The Aer Lingus booking was made at 9.13am with the expectation that I would get a refund for the original Ryanair booking. The Aer Lingus booking was made prior to their retraction email. The retraction email was issued at 10.45am.”
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She says that Ryanair “are refusing my refund as flight was not cancelled, they won’t answer my messages, the app link to contact them about this booking won’t work, they refused to take a second call from my phone, saying all answers are on the website. On November 19th, I finally got to speak with a human on the phone and after explaining to him that I rebooked with a different airline prior to the retraction email and needed a refund, he advised me to download a refund form from Google.”
Frances did as she was instructed but ”of course it was rejected as the flight was not cancelled. After hours of talking to chat bots, an agent/bot eventually said somebody from the refund section would contact me within 48 hours. That was on November 22nd. They did not come back to me.
She says she paid €953.07 for the tickets and “every avenue that I have tried to contact them has been a dead end”.
We contacted the airline and received the following statement.
“If [Frances] forwards a copy of her alternative flight booking made at 9.13am on November 15th last, we will be happy to refund her the full cost of her Ryanair flight booking.”
We then heard back from Frances who told us that just two hours after we made contact with the airline, it had made contact with her to say her refund of almost €1,000 was on the way.
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