Pregnant mum left stranded 15 hours at El Altet airport

JUST four days after a pregnant mother had flown into Alicante on a Ryanair flight, the airline told her she was too far gone to fly home.

Wendy Townsley from Prestonpans, East Lothian in Scotland was 34 weeks pregnant and the airline’s policy is that women who are more than 28 weeks pregnant must have a medical certificate to say they are able to fly, while those over 36 weeks are not allowed to fly.

Staff at Prestwick airport had allowed to her fly with no mention of any certificate. She had flown in for a weekend in Benidorm with her parents and toddler daughters.

On return she got as far as check-in and security, but ran into problems at the boarding gate just before the flight was about to take off. 

She managed to contact her midwife and have the medical certificate faxed to the airport within minutes but by the time it arrived her flight had left.

Ryanair reportedly told her she would need to pay £400 (€459) for another flight. She decided to pay more for a flight home with a different airline because she was so “angry with Ryanair”.

The 32-year-old had to wait at El Altet airport for 15 hours with her daughters Mirrum-Lucia, aged one and Denver-Tia, aged two.

“When checking-in a supervisor was asked if I was able to fly and they said it was fine,” Wendy told the Daily Record. “My parents were on an earlier flight so I was alone at the airport with my two girls.”

“They said I couldn’t fly in case I went into labour, but the stress they caused me could have brought on the birth, it was awful.”

A spokesman for the company declined to comment.