Excusez-moi! you are in ze wrong country, monsieur-dame!

Simon Forster and Emma Schofield were greeted with a cheerful “bonjour” at passport control. Odd, as they had booked a holiday flight from Manchester to Copenhagen, where the language is, usually, Danish.

It was then that the couple realised they were in the French city of Beauvais, near Paris – 750 miles from their intended destination.

The couple who say they were “flown to the wrong country” on a Ryanair plane are demanding an apology and a £930 reimbursement. after they ended up in France not Denmark. They made the unexpected trip just days before Christmas 2021 during the “chaos” of the festive season.

They told the Manchester Evening News that they were faced with “horrendous” queues at Manchester Airport and were forced to “sprint” to their gateway to make sure they didn’t miss their plane. Upon arrival at the terminal they claim that they were ushered down some stairs before boarding the only waiting plane on the runway.

“There was a red plastic link chain directly ahead and to the right, so we turned to the left and to the plane that was there,” Simon said. He also told the newspaper they tried to show their boarding passes to a member of the cabin crew who he claims said: “Oh don’t worry about it”, and asked them to take their seats.

“We got on and there were only about six other passengers, which was not surprising because so many people were missing flights,” Simon said, referring to the pre-Christmas chaos at the airport.

Ryanair told the Manchester Evening News that it’s each passenger’s responsibility to ensure they board the correct aircraft and there are several ‘touchpoints’ throughout the passenger journey which inform passengers of the aircraft’s destination – including a welcome on the flight’s public address system before take-off.

Mr Forster claimed that any such announcement was not made in English. “The shock of landing somewhere near Paris when you’re supposed to be going to Copenhagen was ridiculous,” he says. “I would like to understand how on earth this happened.”

He is asking Ryanair to issue an apology and reimburse his flights, hotels and taxis that came to a total of £930 during his time in Paris. The couple stayed in France for the weekend and booked flights home to the UK with Easyjet.

“We had a lovely weekend and on the way back we kept getting messages from Ryanair about the return Copenhagen flight being delayed,” he said. Simon claims that he has tried to speak to RyanAir several times to complain and to seek reimbursement of his flights and the costs incurred.

Ryanair did not provide a comment when contacted by the newspaper, but for background stated: “It is each passenger’s responsibility to ensure they board the correct aircraft.

“There are several touchpoints throughout the passenger journey which inform passengers of the aircraft’s destination, these include: flight number and destination are clearly printed on the passenger’s boarding card, flight number and destination are displayed at the gate, flight number and destination are called out in the standard boarding PA, flight number and destination are mentioned in the welcome PA on board.