Your Problems: no one will admit fault for missed flight fiasco

I, my husband and around 12 fellow passengers missed the 1.30pm Ryanair flight from Porto to Belfast on 2 August after being unavoidably delayed in the passport queue at the flight gate. We checked our bags at 11.30am and were in the queue for passport control as soon as the gate was announced (it is not possible to join the queue before this time).

We spent over an hour in the queue. We asked if we could move to the front when it became clear that our flight would be closing, but were told this was not possible. No Ryanair rep came to look for the passengers who had not arrived for their flight. No announcement was made calling us. We were completely abandoned and powerless to obtain help. We arrived at the gate about 10 minutes after it closed and could see the plane outside. Ryanair staff would not take responsibility for the missed departure or provide us with paperwork confirming what had happened, although they did fill in formal paperwork recording the event.

We were escorted out of the airside space to collect our bags and advised to find our own way to fly home at our own expense. Ryanair had no flights from Porto to Belfast until four days later. No other airline flies from Porto to Belfast. My husband and I spent around £800 to book flights to Belfast via Bristol, including an overnight stay in a Bristol airport hotel. The total journey time was 23 hours.

I complained to Ryanair, which stated that this was the airport’s fault, not the airline’s. My insurer, RAC, has advised that it covers missed departures, but only when transport on the way to the airport fails. The whole incident has left me feeling entirely uncared for by two companies whom I had entrusted to provide transport and cover in the case of any problems.

You told me that, after checking in and going through security, passengers at Porto Airport have to wait for their gate to be announced before going through passport control. The queues can be horrendous, especially for those leaving the Schengen area.

I checked your RAC policy, and sure enough it does not cover delays caused by the airport. I contacted Porto Airport and its owner, Vinci Airports, neither of which responded. There is no law which obliges them to compensate you.

Finally, I contacted Ryanair. It said: “This flight operated with 158 pax on board, all of whom were at the departure gate when boarding for this flight opened at 12.50pm. The claim that the gate was announced “very close to the flight time” is untrue. The gate was declared at 12.30pm, one hour prior to scheduled departure. Where was she from 11.30am, when she checked her bag, until 12.30pm when the gate was posted?”

I found this complete lack of understanding shocking, especially given that, in June, Ryanair published an article on its own website about the exact issue you had faced. The article said: “Ryanair … called on the newly formed Portuguese government ‘to urgently fix the ongoing border control staff shortages at Faro, Lisbon and Porto Airports, which are causing passengers... to suffer unnecessary delays of up to 2.5 hours’.”

Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s COO, said: “Over the last two weeks alone, over 270 passengers have missed their flights just because airport operator ANA has not ensured that adequate staff are in place to manage border control at Faro, Lisbon and Porto Airports ... the problem will only worsen as we go further into the summer season and traffic numbers increase.”

A friend who frequently flies to and from Porto says you can go straight from security to passport control without waiting for the gate to be announced, and avoid the queues. The Ryanair press officer agreed: “Porto is a single terminal building with only 35 gates, so there was no need to wait for the gate announcement. Ms C could easily have gone through passport control at 11.30am but chose not to do so.”

So why doesn’t Ryanair tell its passengers this so they can avoid missing their plane? Normally, problems which are outside an airline’s control – such as staff strikes or bad weather – are not covered by the compensation rule EC261, but this is a repeated issue which Ryanair could anticipate and alleviate. On that basis, I have advised you to take your complaint to the Aviation Alternative Dispute Resolution service and will update readers about your progress.

Email your problems to Jill Insley at your.problems@observer.co.uk