Ryanair passengers left stranded 3,000 miles away from home after pilot left 50 holidaymakers behind

Dozens of Ryanair passengers found themselves abandoned in Greece after their aircraft bound for London Luton took off without them.

The Athens departure left between 20 and 50 travellers stranded at the airport, unable to make their flight home to the UK.

Ryanair attributed the incident to hold-ups at border control, while Athens airport officials pointed to congestion stemming from "additional processing requirements" affecting passengers travelling to destinations outside the Schengen zone.

The airline confirmed that those who reached the boarding gate in time were able to travel without any problems.

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One holidaymaker described to the BBC witnessing a "mega queue" stretching to several hundred people at both security and passport control, all enduring sweltering conditions.

The scenes grew increasingly distressed as passengers realised they might miss their flight.

"These poor people were pleading with the Ryanair staff to let them through - one guy was crying, another guy looked like he was about to explode," the witness recounted.

Airport authorities were forced to step in after multiple passengers voiced their frustration, with officials confirming they had intervened "to maintain orderly operations" following expressions of dissatisfaction from those caught in the delays.

An airport spokesman explained that "periods of congestion at passport control in the departures area" had occurred owing to heavy passenger numbers combined with new processing demands for non-Schengen travel.

Officials added that passenger flows on certain routes were experiencing longer processing times "as new border-control procedures continue to be implemented and refined" across European airports.

Ryanair stated that passengers had failed to board on time "due to delays caused by border control at Athens airport".

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The incident sparked anger on social media, with one passenger writing on X that it was "utterly disgraceful you left my daughter (and half your passengers) at the gate in Athens today".

The chaos at Athens airport comes amid Greece's abandonment of earlier promises to spare British travellers from the EU's new biometric border checks.

The Greek Foreign Ministry confirmed the policy reversal, stating it had no information that "specific nationalities are temporarily exempt from the relevant procedure".

British passport holders will now face the same Entry/Exit System registration as all other non-EU visitors this summer.

Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni sought to reassure holidaymakers, insisting the government did not want visitors "burdened" by bureaucracy and promising that Britons would be "fast-tracked" through the system, with entry and exit taking "a minute or so."

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