A DUBLIN-BOUND Glasgow pensioner who uses a wheelchair was stranded overnight in Stansted Airport after she was put on to the wrong flight.
Margaret McKissock, 75, from Glasgow was travelling from the city with Ryanair to see her son who lives in Dublin on Monday, July 24.
Mobility services OCS had collected the wheelchair-using pensioner in Glasgow Airport, and brought her to the gate.
Ms McKissock explained to Joe Duffy on RTÉ's Liveline: "When you're in a wheelchair, they bring you around to the gate. The young man asked my name, and where I was going and I said Dublin. He wheeled me out to the flight and I was the last on.
"When I went on the flight, the stewardess took my ticket and checked it."
However Ms McKissock noticed the flight was taking longer than usual, before being told by a fellow passenger they were actually bound for the Essex airport and not Dublin.
She said: "A girl across from me had heard me speaking to someone else, and she said 'this flight is going to Stansted', and I said 'I'm not going to Stansted, I'm going to Dublin'.
"Within minutes there were stewardesses and quite a few of the boys, all round about me and I said to the girl, 'is this flight going to Stansted?' and she said, 'yes', and I said 'no, I'm supposed to be going to Dublin'."
Ms McKinnock then said there was 'quite a panic'.
"The girl in Stanstead was very apologetic, and the chaps. Even the captain came out to see me too and he was pretty annoyed, he said 'this doesn't happen!'"
However, by the time the flight landed into Stansted shortly before midnight on Monday night, it was too late to get to Dublin.
"By the time I get down into the middle of it, everything was closed. They did try to get different people but everything was closed down."
'My family are all pretty annoyed by it'
Ms McKissock did say staff offered her a hotel room, but not she declined to take it, saying: "By that time, the gentleman said he was trying to get me on a flight first thing Tuesday morning and I said well that's fine, but he said 'I thought you might want it later if you're going to a hotel' and I said 'no, I don't think I'll bother going to a hotel', because I had no case with me."
Her luggage, which contained her medication, had been put on the Dublin flight.
Ms McKissock did make it on to the first Dublin flight on Tuesday morning at 6.30am, and made it to her son's house.
"My son was waiting in Dublin and I had a bit of bother to get through to him at the airport but eventually I did.
"And then my other son in Glasgow got to know about it too, and my daughter. They're all pretty annoyed by it."
In a statement on Liveline, Ryanair said: "While we regret any inconvenience caused, wheelchair services at Glasgow Airport are operated by OCS – at great expense to the airlines – and OCS are responsible for this service and any problems with it.
"Thousands of passengers of reduced mobility travel with Ryanair on a weekly basis without issue and we have asked OCS to take the necessary steps to ensure this does not recur.
"This customer was provided with overnight hotel accommodation at London Stansted and flew back to Dublin this morning."
The Irish Post has approached OCS for comment.
