Ryanair passenger who prised open emergency door ‘is Polish man who lived in £35-a-week Costa del Sol homeless hostel'.

What happened to the glamour of flying?

Always think it is best to address the pax prior to departure and in case of delays from the cabin when possible, rather than using the flight deck microphone. A very wise captain once told me this after severe delays and complications.

It worked then and works now, try it.

Regarding the above case, there’s always a bit more to it than a simple story, maybe better details will emerge shortly as to how this could’ve happened.

The Homeless use FR often for commuting. Beg for while, buy a late night return. Sleep in a Terminal downroute somewhere for the night, facilities provided FOC. Return next morning, beg again and so on.

From:- Passenger who left Ryanair flight by emergency door is homeless and unlikely to pay £40k fine

Agoraphobia or asthma?
 

Reading the description of his in-flight behaviour from the escapee's fellow passenger (based on the media links provided), if there is a medical cause of this gentleman's precipitate departure, it would appear to be more above the neck than below it.

Is that right? (Not disputing you here).... quite mind boggling ;)

What's missing in a lot of the "explanations" here is a very important second half of the sentence.

I'm reading a lot of "there was no way to let the passengers off," when I think the actual truth was "there was no way to let the passengers off without inconveniencing the airline or the airport staff."

There is always a way to let the passengers off. 738s have a built-in front stairway. Mobile stairways abound at every airport. No gate? No problem; there's always some door somewhere leading from the ramp into the terminal; passengers could be deplaned and directed to that door.

People get so hung up on "this is the standard way we do things" that they fail to take a step back and realize that there are alternative solutions available.

:=Guages and Dials,
Clearly has no airport knowledge about inbound and outbound passenger segregration and security regulations!

... And that's just the attitude I was talking about. Actually I know a fair bit about inbound and outbound passenger segregation and security regulations.

Neither of which, of course, are immutable laws of physics, violation of which would cause the world to come to an end.

Would it be a hassle to let passengers off the plane, to walk across the apron and enter the terminal through some random door? Of course. That doesn't make it "impossible" by even the remotest stretch of the imagination. And, deploying a few extra staff to watch the corridors and doors along the way, would make it possible to do so without even busting anyone's precious security theater.

Everyone needs to understand that there's a world of difference between "we can't do that," and "we can't do that without busting some paper-pusher's rule and making a little extra work for ourselves."

Hassle? Needs some definition as for whom. To spring this on ground staff would not be a good thing ... think of the strength of ill-feeling when deplaning FR passengers cannot access the terminal at STN as a starting point.

to walk across the apron - depends on the distance and any taxying aircraft or other moving vehicles ... could cause delay or put lives at risk ... and what about any disabled passengers on the aircraft?

enter the terminal through some random door - contamination between incoming and outgoing passengers possible, who has the key and who controls the movement of 150+ passengers? Not a good spontaneous idea.

Understood but this is not a good spontaneous move, especially as the individual concerned seems to have health and lifestyle problems.

But that can not be anything outside of an existing procedure!

The problem seems to have been all about lack of communication.
Passengers actions totally unacceptable.
As was that of the crew; maybe FD, maybe cabin.

If the passenger is subject to censure then so should be the crew.

Oh so you mean The Homeless are almost as transient as aircrew, except the beds are not as comfortable, and The Homeless Beggars are surprisingly wealthy enough to pay for their flying at short notice, or did you mean they plan it and their cashflow budgeting weeks in advance to get the cheap overnight prices? I notice you use a capital 'H' - in worshipful manner ? I've added a Big B for rasBerry on that :hmm:

And what is the story thesedays in EU regarding inbound and outbound contamination between passengers? One airport I use very regularly has it happening by design in a long corridor adjacent to the apron all airside of passport control. The only thing stopping FR inbound pax turning on their heel and flying back is the lack of a boarding pass to show cabin crew at the top of the aircraft steps, and they could even bypass that if they had conspired with an outbound passenger and either swapped places or displayed the outbound passenger's boarding pass on a second phone.

Thinking about it, this also would risk the scenario where an outbound passenger who had checked in a bag did not to fly - he need only turn on his heel after passport control and join the inbound queue, and show his passport again at a different desk as he exited.

Actually I raised this with airport security some months ago when they'd removed a wall (permanently it now seems) and created the situation. I got a blank response. Maybe we don't actually worry about such things anymore, else CCTV, facial recognition software, and passport scanning is all seamlessly integrated across EU and Schengen, and uniformed officers would come running the moment we step out of line?

And Communication? You mean like we still have to think outside the systems boxes and engage brain and speak to the great unwashed too?

Glad the Polish asthmatic got his air and didn't hurt himself.

Regular passengers notice all the foibles, opportunities and inconsistencies, and so they notice that top hinged 738 wing exits don't actually require much to close again, so no harm done really, eh?

Lessons learned all round we hope ... :}

Think of the strength of ill-feeling when passengers are held captive without an explanation.

Other taxiing aircraft and moving vehicles have brakes, which the pilots / drivers can apply so as to avoid putting lives at risks. Yes, of course it could cause delay -- but that's different from "it's impossible"

On the overall scale of things, how serious is this risk? I would argue that the risk is immeasurably small. Since the incident is by definition unplanned, no malicious actor would be able to pre-position so as to take advantage of it. Not to mention that security screenings miss something upwards of 75% of contraband in tests, so allowing 100 passengers potential access to the departure area isn't really a big deal.

What's interesting here I think, is the reflection of industry culture and corporate culture. There are very different mindsets required for different parts of the industry, and a "one size fits all" mindset does not work.

For the people who are flying and maintaining the aircraft, the exemplary forward progress of western aviation safety suggests that we're doing pretty much the right thing: carefully developing procedures and following them. For pilots and mechanics, the personality type whose first instinct is "hey, let's try something new," is quite wrong.

On the other hand, in spite of the senior management of the airlines trying to convince Wall Street that they are in an industrial business that involves moving metal around the country, they are, to their constant annoyance, in the hospitality business. In that situation, a culture of "These are the rules and we need to follow them without fail." is exactly wrong.

What works excellently for operations, works terribly for hospitality, and we are seeing increasing numbers of instances of the conflict between the two mindsets creating misery all around.

Didn't too many airlines forget about that a long time ago? More seats less lavs. No food and service at all? Flying Strato-Greyhounds including the same clientele. So no surprise.

There is no story. Passengers from the UK are considered sterile, and end up in the sterile non-schengen area at airports that have that (some airports don't have a sterile non-schengen area so you end up in the non-sterile area, which is a pain - some don't have enough gates in the sterile area so likewise send you to non-sterile). Same as passengers from the US, possibly Canada too - no security needed before boarding your next flight. (The opposite direction doesn't always work - Canada seem to be trying to allow sterile connections, but in a weird way where all arriving passengers mix, followed by allowing people to skip security based on their arriving boarding pass. The UK and the US simply couldn't care less and waste everyone's time.)

And ID checks at boarding are quite rare for Schengen internal flights IME. Some countries do it, but many don't. At least there is positive bag matching (at least relative to ticket if not passenger), the US don't even bother with that.

Nor does the EU airport I often use. As I mentioned earlier, the FR UK inbound and EU outbound to UK same aircraft flight (and maybe others - I have no experience of those at this airport) always mixes the airside inbound and outbound queues airside of passport control in both cases. Passport control inbound is separately manned some distance from passport control outbound and both are the closest functions airside to the aircraft. Bags to the hold can be identified with the credentials of who dropped them, but as there is no further check that those people ever get on the aircraft or whether instead, they double-back after passing through gate checks and scans and passport control, but then leave the airport with the inbounds, the hold bags can no longer be guaranteed accompanied on the outbound flight, now can they?

The venue I'm referring to regularly has 2x189 pax opposite direction long queues completely mixed in a 4 meter wide, 30 metre long corridor with seats for whoever fancies them down the sides. It is so mixed that inbound pax often have to weave round outbound seated pax legs and bags and loose kids as they head into the terminal. On inbound I have stood for minutes with the outbound queue chatting to neighbours standing waiting to board outbound who by arrangement used my car to get to the airport (saves parking charges!). We had arranged to use two different keys but I could have gone with my gut feeling that one key handed over in the inevitable mixed queue would have been sufficient due to the recent disappearance of the partition between us!

The effect of the removal of the wall between inbound and outbound has the effect that they could have left the outbound queue and gone back landside with me, and that means they could have left one or more checked-in bags to fly to UK unaccompanied. No-one would have been the wiser other than if count was occurring on the aircraft (and who has noticed one of those recently on FR, eh?). Even with allocated seating there are no checks so long as everyone is happy and not getting cabin-crew involved. I sit in my allocated seat about one flight in five - I blag the other four because as a regular pax, I know where the likely unsold more comfortable seats will be and one time even got to sit in someone else's allocated seat because I'd blagged from cabin crew on the offchance, and cabin crew smoothly persuaded said dispossessed that another seat was just as good! So it isn't so much the pax being treated as automatically sterile - because it seems no-one notices whether we are actually there or not after we've been through the usual motions at the gate - we can just as easily turn up after that as an undetected surplus, or our empty seat can be an undetected deficit onboard. It's the checked-in bags that now seem to be being treated as automatically sterile.

And back to the rubbing shoulders aspects of a mixed queue, it just so happens my neighbours are from two separate non-EU countries, and they do not carry EU or Schengen ID.

So is segregation of inbound and outbound international pax and bag matching to actual flying pax at all important anymore ? ... I'm now guessing not ...

As Guages and Dials begins to highlight quite well, we have many effects which are a reflection of the gross inconsistencies that can occur with the permutations of 1001 different brands of hospitality versus almost as many combinations of slick transport and airport security operations. Cabin crew may smile and let me informally "upgrade" my seat and even sit in someone else's seat, but who am I? Unless they ask to see my boarding pass and ID (and they never have in any of the tens of times I've blagged a different seat) they've only got my word that I even belong on the aircraft in the first place, because I could be using another pax boarding pass - even one belonging to someone who is also on the aircraft sat in their proper seat or not, especially at the EU airport airport and on the airline I've alluded to. Alternatively I and everyone else could be sat in the cabin in the allocated seat of one who didn't fly but checked-in a bag which did ... but hey, it's part of life's rich pattern, I guess ... are we at all bovvered?

DOT 3
 

Yes, Congress did. Its called the DOT 3 Hour rule
We receive automated ACARS messages if not airborne within 30 minutes of Out Time, and they require a specific scripted Pax PA and confirmation back to the Company; with increasing levels of visibility in the OCC as time progresses. We can even make a specific request to Ground to expedite gate return based on the DOT3. Penalties, as explained to me; run into the tens of thousands of dollars per Pax.
It's taken very seriously in the US.

This is exactly the way it's supposed to be. Passport control is completely independent of boarding, all they're responsible for is checking that you're able to enter the country and/or that you didn't overstay when leaving the country. Most EU and Schengen airports do this: passengers from the UK (and US) are dumped directly into the departures area of the non-schengen gates. They can then proceed to another gate directly without passport control if they're continuing to a non-Schengen country (arrivals from non-sterile countries go through security first, but no passpot checks same as UK/US). Passport control is only needed if you either want to exit the airport, or go into the Schengen departure area.

The bag matching is done when boarding passes are scanned, at which point passengers should no longer be mixed. (Also, many airlines count passengers when boarding so a mismatch would be detected if someone didn't scan their boarding pass.) Flights to the UK also _have_ to check passenger ID when boarding, so bags are positively matched to an identity - but that's separate from passport control run by the immigration authorities. Most schengen-internal flights don't do that ID check when boarding, but they still match bags against boarding passes.

No, I can't imagine so :hmm:

I think I have confused you by mentioning passport control which could be pre or post gate at different airports. In the airport in question it just happens to be the last check before boarding the aircraft i.e. it is after the gate, so after the last boarding pass scan and ID check. Yes it is a separate function to the airline gate check and electronic bag match. But both opportunities for the final scan and control are compromised. The relevant fault is all caused by the free mixing of inbounds and outbounds after the gate which means outbound pax can easily leave undetected at that point without having to abnormally run across an apron and vault a fence! The inbounds who've been mixed with final scanned and ID'd outbounds are merely subject to a passport check to get landside. One or more deliberate non-fliers i.e. who had not boarded after being counted and scanned through their boarding gate, would not be noticed or challenged - their flight would depart short of SOBs, and no-one would be the wiser.

Yes, scanned once when dropping the bag landside and a second time when passing through the gate and being counted through the gate, thus confirming the match of bag with original drop-off passenger ...That's my point ... they are then mixed :eek:
Nope, because "boarding" is contaminated by mixing post gate, the theory is compromised at the airport I described, I'm afraid. Bag matching is all about making sure a pax who checks in a bag flies with it without fail, right? Else the bag should be pulled.

• Mixing occurs after going through their gate and showing ID.
• Boarding or not becomes an undetectable choice although of course most do not realise they have the choice to walk out the airport quickly with the inbounds if they wish without a word to anyone.
• No counts occur as pax climb the stairs with my favourite airline
• rarely is there a count when all pax are onboard anymore - most of the reasons for having to do them are "thought" to have been eliminated by newer digital systems of control.
• cabin crew merely glance at boarding passes to make sure you have boarded the correct flight and to point you to the right part of the cabin.

There was a period when we had multiple failed counts onboard which I assume occurred only when the number of boarding passes at the gate did not match the number on the loading sheet - there was a time (pre-digital) when you couldn't get airside without showing ID with boarding pass - before there were unmanned scanning machines at the gates.

I am sure all changes have been implemented in good faith, and are intended to maintain security and improve it, but the trouble is, there are still far too many variations of airport pax handling at each destination to reasonably expect any EU-wide or Schengen-wide, or worldwide one-size-fits-all directive to work at every venue. As a result, I have a nasty feeling the plot still gets lost sometimes in more ways than you might imagine!

I appreciate this is all a far cry from what caused a Ryanair pax to let himself out of a wing exit, but broadly it is still about what bad things potentially happen when you squash passengers into small spaces where they don't think they ought to be, especially they realise they are being "kettled".

In small spaces bumping with others, they even have time to work out how to breach the system should they so wish on another occasion. By "kettled" I mean they are involuntarily held in some way in a confined area until the airport or the airline is ready to deal with letting them move freely. That just as well applies to being held on the aircraft on stand waiting unreasonably for ground crew to bring stairs (which simply shouldn't happen), or queuing in poorly lit and steep gate stairwells never designed for it before being release onto the apron. Some of those include areas which I would question as safe for nearly 200 people to be crammed into with what appear to be locked exits until the airport is ready to let you onto the apron! This need for kettling the pax close to the stand in order to reduce turnround times now also seems to include, at at least one airport, the sort of actual apronside mixing of inbound and outbound international pax. That simply can't be right however you look at it.

We humans don't like being "kettled" against our will. It's a natural aversion. "Queueing" is something else - that's an optional activity. Spending time flying in a cigar tube plus a modest bit of time on the ground both ends is also optional - but when that gets extended unreasonably ("lo-cost" has certainly redefined that!), we shouldn't be surprised some people get more and more claustrophobic and a few are driven to do strange things.

This thread has gone a bit astray.

The fact is that this was New Year's Day; the aircraft had a slot outbound from STN and arrived to a remote stand in AGP where no buses were available. The crew made PAs to the passengers at all stages.

Anybody who has piloted commercial aircraft around Europe will know that at busy times ATC slot delays are the rule, not the exception. A 1 hour delay is not unusual. Waiting for ground transport for pax on arrival is not unusual either, and wouldn't surprise me on New Year's Day when an aircraft arrives an hour late. I'm not saying things can't be organised better. Of course they can. But some things are not in the hands of the flight crew.

No Captain in his right mind would allow a plane load of pax to disembark and walk across a busy apron to a terminal building a few hundred metres away. To suggest that his or her unwillingness to countenance the option of doing so represents a failure to 'think outside the box' is nonsense.

This is simply a case of a distressed pax doing something silly.

May we be permitted to know your source for that statement, given that it directly contradicts other reports?

Guilty! So has certain types of communication with and control of pax in airports and aircraft!

So what? This is aviation. I came into STN on New Year's afternoon. It was a breeze! Are New Year's Day's elsewhere written off as bad days?
Shouldn't have happened.
The lions share of EU-EU flights of 150+ pax loads are FR. A 1 hour delay is not unusual at the end of the day, but destinations know it so should be covering it. My rental car is always ready with a smile the moment I pick it up after a long delay. They have my flight number, and if they have nothing else, but we'd hope they do, they have FR24 on their smartphones. They find other things to do until I arrive. It's called planning.

This is simply a case of p!ss poor planning distressing the pax.