Belgian students taken off Ryanair flight from Spain

Spanish police removed over dozens of students from the Belgium-bound flight before it left the Canary Islands.

Travel Insurance News - 07/02/2011

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More than a hundred students from Belgium were removed from a Ryanair flight in the Canary Islands before it left for Belgium. The Irish discount carrier said police had been called after the students became disruptive.

According to Ryanair, the university students have refused to follow instructions after some of them had objected to being charged for carrying excess hand luggage. Most of the students have now been stranded in Lanzarote as other flights to Belgium are either too expensive or are already full.

Reports in La Provincia, a Spanish newspaper, said staff from the airline had attempted to charge a passenger a fee for excess carry-on luggage. As a result, according to the newspaper, the passenger’s friends then ‘mutinied’.

A spokesman from Spain’s interior ministry said the plane’s pilot was getting ready to take off from Gaucimeta airport when she called over the radio for assistance from the police. The plane was bound for Charleroi in Belgium.

The interior ministry spokesman said 168 passengers had been on the plane. Fewer than 70 of the passengers were allowed back onto the plane.

The airline confirmed the reports that passengers had become disruptive and had refused to comply with instructions from the crew. Ryanair said the disruption was a result of the charge for excess baggage.

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