Ryanair Sacks Cabin Crew For Staging Viral Photo Of Themselves Sleeping On Airport Floor

Ryanair has sacked six members of staff involved in a viral photo which was reported on widely in the news last month.

The photograph which did the rounds showed the members of staff lying on the ground in Malaga Airport’s crew room after Storm Leslie left them stranded.

The airline later denied any wrongdoing and said that all hotels in the area had been booked up and staff were later moved to the VIP lounge.

This is a Ryanair 737 crew based in Portugal, stranded in Malaga, Spain a couple of nights ago due to storms. They are sleeping on the floor of the Ryanair crew room. RYR is earning €1.25 billion this year but will not put stranded crews in a hotel for the night. @peterbellew ? pic.twitter.com/lILWZVqqGj
— Jim Atkinson (@Jimbaba) October 14, 2018

A spokesman has now confirmed the sackings in a statement which said, “All six cabin crew members in Porto were dismissed on Monday November 5 for breach of contract on grounds of gross misconduct, after staging a fake photograph to support a false claim (widely reported in international media outlets) that they were ‘forced to sleep on the floor’ of the Malaga crew room, which was behaviour which damaged their employer’s reputation and caused an irreparable breach of trust with these six persons.”

However, Luciana Passo who is the head of the SNPVAC cabin crew union in Portugal said their legal team was dealing with the issue, adding, “Ryanair thinks it was harmed by the publication of that photograph when it was no more than a show of the crew members’ justified feeling of indignation.”

Ryanair also posted a video on Twitter which appears to be CCTV footage taken in the crew room in question with the caption, 'Ryanair exposes fake photo of cabin crew sleeping in crew room.'

The staff members can be seen lying down for a few seconds before getting up again.

Ryanair exposes fake photo of cabin crew sleeping in crew room. Watch video here: pic.twitter.com/tzTn6EHsKH
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) October 17, 2018