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"I just happened to be in my local Chinese Take-Away as BBC were talking to one of the BHX-TFS passengers via a mobile phone.
Now how true this is or not but apparently a cabin crew member had informed the passengers that they could have departed however the crew would have been out of hours to make the return trip TFS-BHX.
IF this is true then sounds like an O'Leary company policy that FR will not provide crew accommodation under any circumstances, failing that there is no policy in place that crew carry night stop gear with them and, perhaps, the crew had no pyjamas etc. with them!
If this is true I can imagine why the passengers are p1ssed off!
I too watched that lovely piece of reporting from BBC News, a real gem
The lady was complaining how there were 300 people stuck on the plane and that the police had been called to forcibly remove them.
(max passenger configuration is 189)
It is quite true that the crew could have been in hours and do the single flight down to TFS. It was probably left down to the crew's discretion, and I'd have probably made the same decision not to go.
There is NO company policy that RYR will not provide accommodation due to unforeseen night stops, infact quite the opposite. Whenever I've talked to colleagues who have stopped over, the hotels have been good and include dinner and breakfast.
Why should we carry 'night stop gear?' We plan to come back to base every night. With around 260 aircraft, the number of night stops experienced by the company is less than you can count on one hand in any given month
You've also got to think of the bigger picture, having an aircraft stuck down in TFS makes it unavailable for the next days flights, further disrupting the schedule.