Dutch tourists ‘locked In’ at Malaga Airport

PASSENGERS on a Ryanair flight from Eindhoven, Holland, found themselves shut in the airport when they arrived in Malaga.

At around 11.30pm on Monday, the National Police received a call from a man claiming he and the rest of the passengers from a flight which had just arrived from Holland were unable to get out of the airport because all the doors they encountered in their path were closed and there was no staff available to let them out.

National Police immediately contacted the airport authorities who located the passengers and helped them to get out, local newspaper La Opinion de Malaga reports Being a flight within the Schengen area, passengers did not need to pass border control.

The passengers were delayed for approximately 20 minutes because Ryanair staff who should have been on hand to open the doors were not present, according to Spanish Airport Authorities, AENA. Meanwhile, Ryanair claimed to have no knowledge of the event.

Alex Gibbs, 36, a joiner from Shropshire and resident of Malaga province for 22 years, told EWN, “a similar thing happened to me when I returned from Madrid on an Iberia flight last winter. When we exited the airbridge, we encountered a closed glass door, the lights dimmed and no-one around.

“It seems that the passengers on the flight from Eindhoven were more restrained, as some of the men who were on the same flight as me began attempting to break the door down within just a few minutes of being stuck there. Luckily, we were heard by a cleaner who helped us to get through”.

But it is not only the airport staff sometimes seem in too much of a hurry to finish their shift, as Ann Welch, a resident of Arroyo de la Miel experienced. “I was once on the last train back from Malaga with a friend and it was delayed for some reason near the airport for almost half an hour.

“By the time we got to Arroyo de la Miel, the guard had already intended to lock up. Luckily my husband was waiting for me and told him the last train hadn’t got in yet”.