Angry Ryanair passengers stage a sit-in

Ryanair Boeing 737-800 (Wikipedia, photographer Adrian Pingstone)

Lowcost airline Ryanair might well be the cheapest way for many Europeans to fly from point A to point B, but it surely needs a lesson or two on how to treat its passengers.

During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday more than 100 of them refused to leave one of its 'planes after it arrived in the Belgian city of Liège after being diverted from its original destination Beauvais in northern France - 342 kilometres away.

Beauvais of course is the town Ryanair refers to as "Paris" on its list of destinations, even though it is in fact almost 80 kilometres from the French capital.

Most of those on board were reportedly French, returning from holidays in Morocco, and their night of misery began when the flight left - three hours late - from the Moroccan city of Fez.

Unable to land in Beauvais because it was too late and the airport was closed, the 'plane was diverted to Liège, not a destination to which the airline normally flies, and landed late in the evening at 11.30pm.

But the passengers hadn't been alerted ahead of time according to one of them, Mylene Netange.

"The plane didn't land in Beauvais but in Liege without warning us," she told Agence France Presse.

"Consequently, we refused to leave the plane."

The passengers reportedly refused to be budged for four hours, demanding that an alternative means of getting home be provided.

Remember they were over 300 kilometres away from where they should have been.

But their protests seem to have fallen on deaf ears as far as Ryanair was concerned.

Instead they were left sitting in the dark after the pilot and cabin crew had disembarked and it was airport officials who took over the task of trying to negotiate with them and arrange alternative transportation.

Great PR for Ryanair who, as the French daily Libération points out, only a few days ago announced a net half-year of €424 million.

There must be a moral somewhere in this tale.