Ryanair, you are a disgrace for how you treated a passenger yesterday and I’m pretty certain you broke the Equal Status Act 2000-2018, under Irish Law.
Even though I flew out of the UK with #Ryanair OK, after contacting their customer services, I was denied boarding on my return flight from Faro, Portugal - unless I wore a surgical mask.
That’s right, they want the average flyer - with no individual health and safety risk assessment conducted on each paying customer - to fly at high altitudes with restricted oxygen and breathing apparatus.
I never mention this as I don’t feel it relevant (and no one has the right to know my personal business) but due to a childhood incident, I panic if I have anything covering my nose and mouth too long, due to me feeling like I’m suffocating. I can’t swim, go underwater at all, or go in hot baths/saunas etc. for more than a few minutes - so to force me to cover my only airways for a full three hour flight is barbaric, not to mention inhumane.
So yesterday, I managed to get past check-in, police, security staff by giving them a brief explanation in Portuguese - they were fine and quite respectful - but trying to reason with the two male staff at the boarding gate was a futile task...They kept me waiting for over fifteen minutes while they called various personnel to check the validity of the convo I’d already had with Ryanair Customer Services below, clearly saying it was ok to fly maskless. I was thinking “they surely can’t go back on their word after what they had given in writing” - when they finally said I couldn’t fly unless I masked up.
Saying “I CAN’T BREATHE” is only ok for certain races or crisis actors it seems, because a solo-travelling woman telling these clowns that she’d struggle to breathe under paper for 3+ hours just wasn’t a valid reason.
What sort of company is this - and what fucking world are we living in - where a human confides in another human that they will “struggle to breathe” and that other human only bleats about “legislation” and “policy”?
I was still at the gate at 3pm and the flight was meant to take off at 3pm, so we were already quite delayed.
Realising I had no other way of getting home (most fights have been cancelled and I had to be back today), I had no choice but to comply with the two brutes and stick a nappy on my face, which I promptly took off after I got through the gate.
I then had exactly the same ordeal as I boarded the craft, only with three crew members and the Captain refusing my entry this time - unless I forcefully restricted my airways with paper.
These conversations were held loudly at the cabin door, in full view of all the other passengers.
I was the last one to board the aircraft, delaying what was a packed flight in the current circumstances, so you can imagine the mood - which was palpable to say the least.
#Ryanair cabin crew did nothing to minimise my distress, nothing to protect me or preserve my discretion, nor did they show any empathy.
The Captain wouldn’t take off with me breathing freely - and I wouldn’t wear the paper - so he spent twenty minutes ringing HQ in Ireland, further delaying the flight.
In all honesty, I don’t think many people could have handled that situation, it would have broken their soul. I can certainly see why some people feel bullied into wearing paper, but I felt I had to make a stand as there is no way human beings should be wearing these things outdoors or in a non-medical setting, especially when there is so much visual evidence that they’re useless and causing people so much anxiety.
Why on earth do #Ryanair (and other companies) think there are no variables to this? What risk assessments had they done on my individual life experiences and health requirements?
Reasling that we were grounded and that I was outnumbered, I decided to see what it was like, wearing the surgical mask (first time ever) - partly because I felt harassed, victimised and bullied into it (if I wanted to get home, that is) - but also because I wanted to pretend I was a doctor for a while, so was curious to see what it did to my body.
You hear a lot how nurses and doctors wear them for 8 hours a day, but the fact is, they don’t. I have surgeon/dentist mates and they are fully medically trained - the average Joe isn’t - and they take them off/change them every twenty mins, in a setting where there is adequate oxygen. They wouldn’t wear them three hours straight at 30,000+ feet.
Only when I put the fucking thing on - and I could hear a baby crying, so I felt awful that we were still grounded - did they finally shut the cabin door.
We finally took off over half an hour later than scheduled, and after the Captain and crew asked me to disembark the aircraft three times - and each time I refused.
I sat down in my seat but a male member of staff proceeded to harass me whenever I took a gasp of air, like it was a sin to breathe.
By 4pm though, I was alarmed to feel a banging headache coming over me, and when the female crew came over at 4.10pm, I told her my head hurt. This fell on death ears, as she kept bleating about “legal requirements” and “safety.”
“Yes, but I’m not safe as I’ve now got a headache, because of you forcing me to wear this. You do realise you’re making me sick” I told her. “How is this right and how does it make sense, to you?”
She said nothing, despite me telling her about my headache twice.
What fucking planet are we living on where it’s “illegal” to breathe oxygen freely and we’re more bothered about the health of others than our own?
I never get headaches either, so I’m guessing I was - and still am, judging by the off-on headache I’ve had today - in a state of hypoxia, which I’ve since read can be fatal at high altitudes.
Nevertheless, and despite so much resistance from pretty much the whole aircraft, I was relentless in the pursuit to preserve my own sanity and inner calm.
I ordered two beers, chucked the mask in the bin and made the alcohol last until we landed and the door opened.
I asked for the names of all crew including the Captain, but the female attendant refused to take my pen (couldn’t touch the fucking pen but could touch my bank card, dirty napkins and empty cans, of course) to write them down and only gave me her name: “Alexandra.”
On my way out, I was told to wear the paper as I disembarked at Manchester, by the same guy who had harassed me throughout the flight, but I just put my hand up and shook my head.
I had had enough of his/their #bullying tactics and I was back on home soil, so no longer gave a fuck.
I’m sure the staff and some of the passengers thought I was selfish, a troublemaker or whatever...but when it becomes such an issue to them that others need/want to breathe freely, we really have to assess what’s going on mentally with some people.
https://www.ihrec.ie/…/what-does-the-law…/equal-status-acts/
#ICantBreatheEither
#discrimination
#DDA
#EqualityAct
#EqualStatusAct
#complaints
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