From a Swissprt statement on DM
A Swissport spokesman said: 'The weather on February 14 has been recognised as one of the worst to hit the UK for decades with high winds causing travel chaos across the country.
'Stansted Airport was one of the few airports around the country that was able to accept some diverted flights despite some reservations regarding the availability of turn-around facilities.
'Due to extreme weather the inbound flight from Porto was initially diverted to East Midlands and arrived some three hours later at Stansted to collect the passengers for the flight to Porto.
'Swissport and the airport were under considerable pressure with 30 additional diverted flights in addition to scheduled aircraft.
'The flight was loaded, but fueling was not available. This caused the delay.
'Swissport staff were under extreme pressure dealing with an unprecedented level of flights and whilst we accept we should have unloaded the passengers sooner we simply had no one available to unload when contacted by the Captain.
'Swissport regret any delay to passengers and to Ryanair. However, in extreme circumstances, our staff worked tirelessly to ensure that diverted flights were dealt with as soon as possible.
'We are disappointed that even under these extreme conditions we fell short of our usual high standards.'