A Tale Of Riga & Ryanair – It’s Another Travel Disaster Story

I had a wonderful time in Riga recently, but there’s a story I need to tell before I delve into what I loved about our trip to this Baltic city.

Riga was my final trip of 2023, and I spent the weekend wandering through Christmas markets, playing with bunnies, eating pelmeni dumplings, drinking out of an ice block, watching the Latvian president make a speech for live TV, and discovering incredible art nouveau architecture. It was a weekend full of stories to tell, but none quite like the end of the trip.

Escaping the rain, and with uncertainty about whether the airport bus was even running, we headed to the airport a little earlier than we needed to. For once, the idea of some extra time at the airport didn’t bother me – we’d just watched the start of a live TV charity event on stage with an appearance from the Latvian president, and with the rain getting heavier, I was ready to leave after a fantastic weekend in the city.

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Had we known what was going to happen next, I absolutely would not have got to the airport a second earlier than we needed to. Because, ladies and gentlemen, we were still in the airport at 4am. And, after a few hours’ respite in a hotel, we were still there twelve hours after that.

So, let’s start at the beginning – and welcome to another travel disaster story!

It started, of course, with a delay. Every flight I’ve taken in the past year or so has been delayed (except, actually, the flight to Riga). Some have been minimal; half an hour or so, which isn’t really a big deal. Many have been a couple of hours. But none – none have been as big as this one.

The delay this time was around two hours, and, after a plane parked at our gate and the ground staff had a barney because our plane was incoming, we finally boarded around half midnight. At this point, I just wanted to get home, and I was relieved to sit down on a plane that would take me there – that is, after analysing my seat closely, as the seat next to me was revolting. It had juice and crumbs all over it! I had to wipe it down before the person next to me sat down. The perils of a quick turnaround, I guess!

An hour later, we hadn’t left the gate.

Finally, we pushed back and had to taxi over to be de-iced – more delays.

Eventually, at almost 2am, we were ready for take-off! We lined up at the runway, the engines whirred into action, we pushed off, and then… the engines whirred back out of action, and we taxi’d off the runway.

Oh no.

“Sorry about that, folks. A light just came on that shouldn’t have done, but it’s a very, very minor light so we just want to investigate it before we attempt to take off. Better to be safe than sorry.”

I think I was too tired at this point to have a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, and my mind convinced me that this was just a setback. It had to be.

An hour later… in which time my phone was starting to die as I tried to keep Ash updated… with no further announcements, the captain finally spoke over the tannoy. At 3am, there was nobody onsite at the airport who could sign off the aircraft as safe, and we would be disembarking shortly.

Now, technical faults can’t really be helped. But correct me if I’m wrong – surely they would have known at 2am that nobody could sign it off?! Why on earth were we made to sit in fading hope in the middle of the night for yet another hour?!? Worst of all, an Air Baltic plane had parked at our gate, so we had to park remote and bus it back to the terminal.

Finally, after they needed to contact airport staff to come back so that we could actually disembark, we were back in the queue for passport control.

This was a new experience for me anyway – my exit stamp was crossed out to cancel it! It’s signed and dated by the border control officer.

Unfortunately for an Australian couple in the queue next to mine, their Schengen visa had run out that day. As it was now past midnight, they weren’t allowed back into the country and had to spend the night in the international side of the airport. Lesson learned – don’t book a flight at almost 11pm on the day your visa expires!!

So, as it turns out, at least our night wasn’t quite as bad as theirs.

Eventually we got to the queue at the Ryanair desk, thankfully near the front and my friend joined me as she’d been stuck behind the Australian couple. Not that this mattered because there was only one person working and she took twenty minutes to serve the first couple. In this time other staff did arrive, and it suddenly became quite efficient after about half an hour. We were given instructions to get a taxi to a Radisson Blu hotel (!!) and keep all taxi receipts to claim back later. We would then be on a flight at 11.30am, so it would be our responsibility to get back to the airport in time.

I’m not sure when delirium kicked in, but it must have been some time before we finally checked into our hotel at – and I did check the time – 4.36am.

It was nuts. We must have been split between various hotels, because a lot of people arrived at our hotel at once, and then nobody else after a couple of groups behind us. The guy on reception was hilarious. He must have thought he was in for a nice quiet night shift, and then a whole bunch of Scottish hooligans turn up at 4.30am. He gave his spiel to the first few people until we were all repeating the details.

“And what time is breakfast?” he asked one group.

“Between 6.30 and 10.30!” the girls bleated.

My friend and I were staying in separate rooms, probably because we had separate flight bookings. The receptionist made up two keys for my room, and then realised. “Oh well,” he shrugged. “Maybe you have special boyfriend visit you in the night.”

Two minutes after parting ways, my friend messaged me. “I’ve just had a text saying our flight is now at 3.10pm.”

I didn’t get that text. In the morning over breakfast, it transpired that some people had and others hadn’t! What the hell? If I hadn’t been travelling with my friend, I would have been none the wiser!

Most people decided to head to the airport based on the 11.30am flight – we left slightly later, but didn’t want to risk aiming for the 3pm flight in case it was brought forward. Edinburgh Airport’s live arrivals were still expecting us to land at lunchtime, and our manager was messaging me hopeful that we’d be able to log on at work for the afternoon.

Once again, with the power of hindsight I wish we hadn’t gone so early. There was a pink church near the hotel that I really wanted to see, and unfortunate circumstances (involving unreliable public transport!) meant we didn’t get there the day before. It almost felt like fate that we’d now have the chance. But I didn’t want to risk it, and so we didn’t.

So instead, we spent half the day in an airport that we’d already spent far too much time in.

On the upside, we managed to get our duty free goods back through security! This came as a surprise, as we had full bottles of alcohol. They hadn’t been expensive luckily, so I was relieved not to be trying to smuggle a £200 bottle of whisky! But we decided to ask nicely anyway – we explained that we had been on the cancelled flight the night before and we had our receipts from duty free, and asked if there was any chance we could take them through. She checked the receipts and went to speak to her manager. They then put the bottles through a big scanner and then handed them back to us! So that was a wee bonus.

In fairness, there are worse airports to be stuck. RIX is actually pretty good, with plenty of shops and some nice places to eat – even a carousel! But we were so done with being next to this gate now, where a nearby play area was the most god awful annoying play area you’ve ever heard.

Then our gate changed to the next one. Then the time got pushed back. The entire time we were at the airport, three flights went to London Stansted. Right, so they need three flights, but they couldn’t have snaffled one of those planes for Edinburgh?! I suppose we were already delayed so much that they were paying us compensation regardless; we weren’t a priority any more.

Eventually, the time stopped being updated at 4.20pm. At 4.45pm, the departure board still said we were leaving at 4.20pm. The gate board, however… oh boy! I have never seen this before.

It said “the plane will depart when the crew arrives!” Exclamation mark and all.

The crew had DISAPPEARED.

It transpired that they needed a 12 hour break after their shift – once again, something they should have known before putting us on an 11.30am flight in the first place, surely?! But it does explain the random time of 3.10pm, as that must have been 12 hours after we disembarked.

So where the hell were they now?! The ground staff didn’t have a clue and seemed as frustrated as us, and theories were bandied around between disgruntled passengers; everyone watched like hawks as crew buses stopped at gates, and eventually someone went for a walk and announced that he’d just seen the crew from last night! They never came to the gate, clearly avoiding us.

Suddenly, boarding was announced and there were audible cheers!

It felt like deja vu as we got onto the plane at 5pm.

…It then felt like serious deja vu when we sat there for another hour. AGAIN.

At first we thought it was because another bus would be coming, because the girl next to me from the night before wasn’t there, and my friend’s row was empty… but then they took the stairs away and we just sat there, sending each other concerned messages.

I am not even joking. We finally departed – with a successful take-off! – at 6pm. SIX PM. A mere 19 hours after we were supposed to have left.

At this point, with a fully charged phone, I was sort of live-tweeting as I wish I had been the night before. Just as the story was drawing its epic conclusion, I got an email from Ryanair saying I could win a 100€ gift card if I filled in a survey about how they had done! You couldn’t make it up. I have, of course, filled in the survey to let them know exactly how they’d done.

I’ll tell you what – I have never been so glad to be home from a trip.

Like I said before, technical issues (usually) can’t be helped. And the crew made the right call putting safety first. But the communication was diabolical. The fact half the passengers didn’t get updates on the new flight time. The complete shut-down of communication once it was indefinitely delayed with the crew up on Mars for all we knew. Even the needless hour or so spent on the plane when they must have known we wouldn’t be able to go, and then the extra hour before we finally departed.

I am beginning to think I’m cursed when it comes to public transport.

In Germany, we flew into the wrong airport (that part was entirely my fault), my bank card was frozen when I tried to buy a train ticket at midnight in the middle of nowhere, the train was then delayed, and it subsequently terminated miles outside Dusseldorf and a group of us had to band together to get a taxi. We got to our hotel at 3am.

In Norway, all trains were cancelled due to a storm, and we had a total nightmare trying to get from Oslo to Bergen. (Thankfully it worked out and we had an amazing time in Norway!)

In Lithuania, I decided not to risk public transport for a super early flight as the first bus got to the airport 10 minutes before our gate closed, and booked a Bolt taxi instead. The taxi picked up the wrong people and I couldn’t cancel or book another taxi because I had a journey “in progress”. I left the driver an incredibly scathing review and have never used Bolt since.

And if you think my travel woes are all abroad, think again.

Heading to Manchester last year, my train was delayed so much that it missed the last connection in Preston and I got half my money back.

And going to London a few months before that, my train was cancelled and we were sent via Glasgow. That train then terminated about half way to London, we were sent across the platform to jump on a different train which had 20 stops or more, that train somehow ended up on the wrong track in Birmingham, and we eventually arrived in London at 2.30am, over four hours later than scheduled. I got a full refund for the delay.

All of this just in the past 18 months.

And the latest one, in Riga, where our flight was delayed by a whopping nineteen hours and I had to miss a day of work. The irony being, I chose this weekend specifically because the flight schedule was different and meant I wouldn’t need to book a day off work.

Even worse – I was travelling with a work friend, who shares part of my role. This was after the flight cancellation home from Gdansk a couple of weeks before, causing us to spend an extra day in Poland and book the day off work then, too. Needless to say, I think we are banned from travelling together!!

On the upside, we’re due a massive compensation claim, thanks to the delay being in the EU. Ryanair have confirmed that I’ll be getting a whopping £365 back, which is far more than the entire trip cost!

Making the claim was another ordeal, of course, although I was impressed in the end how quickly it was sorted. I expected to put the claim in and it would take weeks for them to even acknowledge it. That was a generous expectation, because it wouldn’t let me put in the claim in the first place.

The form asks for your booking details, and when I selected the return flight, it had the absolute cheek to tell me that the flight hadn’t been delayed more than three hours! I went onto their live chat with a message that said something like “according to basic maths, 19 hours is definitely more than 3 hours”. Someone very quickly replied, apologising that they could see that the delay hadn’t been updated properly on the system, and directed me to a general form and told me what to do.

All very helpful, as their live chat actually usually is – surprisingly! Naturally, the first email I got a few hours later in response to my claim request was that I wasn’t entitled to a refund. I replied saying that I wasn’t asking for a refund – I was asking for the compensation due to the delay. Again, I got what seemed like an automated, anonymous response telling me that it was a non-refundable ticket and I wouldn’t be getting a refund.

I was getting angry at this point. “Please can an actual human look at my request and acknowledge that I am NOT looking for a refund, I am requesting the compensation that is due by law under EU261 regulations”, I typed furiously, even attaching pictures of my taxi receipts in the vain hope that it might even get sorted all together.

Within ten minutes, someone with an actual name replied, confirming that £365 compensation had been authorised, including the amount from my receipts, and asking for my bank details for the payment. I was stunned. In fact, dare I say it, I was impressed!

I’m yet to receive the money, although they did say there would be delays due to the Christmas period so to expect it mid-January. I was hoping I might have the full happy ending for this post.

Update: I did receive it towards the end of January, finally!

A month later, I am exhausted even thinking about getting on another plane. I can’t bring myself to book a Ryanair flight for the foreseeable future.

It’s incredible that I even still love travel, to be honest…!

And I thought Dusseldorf was going to be my biggest travel disaster last year!

Have you ever had any huge travel disasters?*

(*Travel Architect – your COVID flight definitely trumps my story!)