Anyone see this story on Facebook and various online portals?
‘Staff ‘refused to let a severely autistic boy, 15, onto a Ryanair flight from Alicante after trying to charge his family a £25 carry-on fee for the teenager’s comfort doll’.
It goes on: ‘A mother has branded Ryanair a ‘disgrace’ after claiming airport staff stopped her 15-year-old autistic son from taking a flight and tried to charge a £25 carry-on fee for a comfort doll. Helen Estella, from Doncaster, claims her son Leo suffered a ‘meltdown’ due to the way he was treated, with airport staff even calling police. Leo, who was travelling with his carer, had been scheduled to travel on a UK-bound flight from Alicante airport on Saturday evening.’
Absolutely shocking, isn’t it? Everyone on Facebook certainly thought so with thousands of angry comments following Ms Estella’s post and Ryanair getting an absolute pasting. The story continued that although Ryanair refused to allow the child and his carer board the plane, Jet2 kindly obliged. God bless them.
Beyond an allegation by one person, little additional information is available. We don’t know why the parents weren’t in Alicante with such a severely disabled child, but his ‘carer’ was. Was the boy there on holiday or does he live there? Does he even live with his parents? The explanations may be quite innocent but given that over 60,000 people have shared Ms Estellas Facebook post, aren’t we entitled to some facts?
Ryanair offered its own version of events in a statement that didn’t even appear in the Daily Mail’s sub-headline never mind the main one:
‘This teenage passenger and his carer were provided with special assistance by Alicante airport after checking in. (All such assistance in Alicante is provided by the Airport Authority). At passport control, the teenager became agitated and aggressive towards his carer and the carer took the decision not to travel. The passengers were then taken to the airport medical assistance team where the upset passenger received sedation. As these two passengers never arrived at the Ryanair Boarding gate, their luggage was offloaded at the request of Alicante passport control staff, who advised Ryanair’s gate agents that they had decided not to travel. These two passengers did not arrive at the boarding gate, and therefore, they were not “denied boarding” and neither were they charged for any hand luggage.’
I offer the above simply on the grounds of fairness. I have never flown with Ryanair, I have no desire to do so. I don’t care for their owner Michael O’Leary, not least because of his many inflammatory statements. However, I do have some regard for the truth.
I imagine that few of the 60-odd thousand people who shared Ms Estella’s Facebook post have never flown before because otherwise they would know that most airlines outsource the majority of airport functions. It is entirely possible that a passenger might not come across a single Ryanair employee from the time of arriving at the airport until they actually board the aircraft.
It is entirely possible that Ms Estella has been telling the truth, or at the very least the truth according to her son’s carer, but until we learn more basic facts, more about the background of this disturbing case, we can only speculate.
One thing has been confirmed for the umpteenth time: just because something appears on the internet, it doesn’t make it true, even if countless thousands believe it is. But, in an era of fake news and outright lies, do we have journalists worthy of the name who can get to the bottom of the story? I’m not holding my breath.
