I can partly sympathise with some of the junior people directly involved in the situation.

Imagine you were cabin crew on the flight - it's 3 am, you have very little control of the situation, you don't dare go against company procedures because of the company's reputation for punishing those who break the rules, you've done far more hours than you expected to work, and you're not being paid for all the grief. Whatever happens, you won't be thanked or rewarded for your efforts.

Would you really care after 3 am ?

Were flight deck crew on board the plane ? What did the captain do ? You know - all that stuff about captain being in command and responsible, etc...

As a passenger, I am somewhat bemused that those "primarily concerend about your safety aboard" cannot function at all during a situation that's outside the ordinary. Scary at least. You would hope one of the flight attendants or the captain had sufficient imagination/brain power to resolve such a situation. And if that means calling the police because you don't know where to go with all these passengers due to a shut terminal building, so be it. Reflects very poorly on Ryanair's company culture, where employees are 1) not capable to function outside set protocol or/and 2) scared to do so!

why should this even be outside set protocol?

it shouldn't have got that far / as lengthy !

WTF you including me in your rant ?

As for police going onto U2 flights, they have and most likely will again.

So you ignore Police man statement that they cannot find anybody within airport to open up.

Airport is responsible for PAX in airport and their access NOT the airline.
No reason for Pilot or Crew to keep people on plane if they can get them back into Terminal.

Additionally Airline cannot allow passengers off aircraft IF there are no personnell from handling agent available as handling agents are responsible for Pax from the moment their feet hit the ground.

Crew faced with a we cannot go anywhere and we cannot offload because airport locked up and handling agents gone home.

.........just curious as to when Stansted became part of Portugal.

I read "PEOPLE" as POLICE hence comment..........sorry:ugh:

If there is NOBODY and I mean NOBODY from the ground handlers taking calls, available or anywhere around then what do you do ?

Doesn't mean at 1am when rain is peeing down in a a major storm at Gatwick they will answer the phone.....does it ?
What then ?
Do you abandon aircraft and go seeking them ? or stay with the aircraft and keep ringing.

Me at a guess you would keep trying as I figure the FR crew were doing but when no access to terminal, handling agents won't pick up the phone and limited options what then ?

FR
 

Problem is many airports have been trained by MOL to leave his planes and customers high and dry

You provide ooh service and submit the extra invoice for staffing and equipment
And he REFUSES to pay even when the Capt and local manager said they would pay, or he gets the invoice and pays a small fraction of it, a small fraction determined by him. , so

FR are 100% at fault here

No handler or airport will work for free , MOL has trained airports etc to be like that , even cabin crew are not happy working for nothing

Every airport, airport handler in Europe knows FR , you won't get paid for OOH service even when promised.

What would have happened if at 2 am, one of the passengers had decided they'd had enough, gone to an unattended aircraft door, blown one of the chutes, gone down the slide and walked towards the terminal ?

Would MAG likely have prosecuted for trespass or would the passenger have had reasonable excuse ? Would Ryanair have likely sued for damages ?

With DJ6 on this, I'd defend my right to leave a parked aircraft and leave the airport if need be. Obviously allowing a reasonable time for staff to escort me.

With or without police help.

Wonder what constitutes false imprisonment? (And yes, a serious question).

The next iteration of EU passenger rights legislation will include clauses on tarmac delays. Details are still to be thrashed out between the EU's legislative organs but I would guess most likely is food and refreshments after one hour, return to the gate after 2 hours unless safety/security reasons why not.

The precedent? All Finnish civil airports are maintained by Finavia, the former Finnish Civil Aviation Administration, but in the future it could change. Early next month the Finnish Government will decide whether to give Lappeenranta airport the permission to cut loose from Finavia's network and start on its own. The aim is to reduce airport fees, and thus open up new connections to Europe. So far Ryanair planes are flying full from this airport on the Russian border, but the amount of flights is very low. The local authorities claim that this potential could be utilized to much greater extent.

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.'

Ryanair issue joint statement with Swissport
 

They had at least 12 hours notice that this storm was coming, what intensity it would be and the effect the winds would have one 29L/R at LHR and 26 at Gatwick. I think it reflects extremely badly on Swissport that they had insufficient overtime cover in place on the night and on FR for not ensuring this was the case. If I have it right, there wasn't anybody to escort the passengers from the aircraft to the terminal and then supervise them in the terminal. The police hade to break in to the airport ffs

Could also be construed as a monumental failure of systems / procedures and in senior management for failing to ensure adequate planning for when normal systems are put under strain to ensure there are no catastrophic failures.

It'll never be disclosed publicly, but somebody at a high level deserves a bit of a kicking for not thinking about resilience in an organisation. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity as management concepts have been around for decades

The biggest issue that I see here is the passengers. If they had called the police 'several' times and nobody had arrived at the aircraft, what was to stop any of the passengers simply walking off the aircraft?

From what we see in the video, the door was open. Can we assume the air stairs were down? If so, what stopped passengers forcing their way off the aircraft. There may not have been any access into the terminal but one would assume that police would turn up fairly sharpish if there was members of the public walking around the ramp unescorted?

Also, was there not one single member of swissport or ryanair that had airside ID to access the terminal?

You would be subject to serious legal prosecution if you did it, I'm not saying you would be prosecuted due mitigating circumstances, but the laws for deliberately trespassing on the ramp are quite severe

If STN is 24 hour then the lack of fire cover excuse I read elsewhere is bull****