About 50 passengers claim they were left behind in Toulouse by Ryanair after their flight left early.

On June 19, 2021, the Ryanair flight FR3551 operated by the Boeing 737-800 registered as EI-DPK from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS) in France to Fès-Saïss Airport (FEZ) in Morocco was supposed to take off at 7:25 am and arrive at the destination at 8:30 am, local time.

However, about 50 passengers claim they were refused to board, as the gate closed earlier than expected. According to local media, the departure gate closed at 6:55 am ‒ half an hour before the initially scheduled take-off. 

“When we went into the boarding lounge at 7:10 am after two hours of waiting for check-in, we were told that the plane had left,” a passenger told La Depeche.

According to Ryanair’s policy, passengers must be at the boarding gates at least 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time and boarding ends 20 minutes before departure. Unlike what the passengers claim they were told, flightradar24 data indicates that flight FR3551 on June 19, 2021, left Toulouse at 8:42 am, an hour and twenty minutes late.

While passengers missing the gate closing time is nothing exceptional, the fact that as many as 50, a fourth of the flight’s capacity, were left stranded seems quite unusual. 

AeroTime reached out to Ryanair for comment.