Ryanair nearly had one of its Boeing 737s seized by a debt collector earlier this week after enforcement officers boarded one of its airplanes at Linz Airport in Austria and pasted a court document to the inside of the plane over the airline’s failure to pay a debt of just €892.87 ($1,022).
The bizarre incident unfolded after a Ryanair passenger filed a compensation claim against the carrier following a delayed flight in July 2024.
The passenger’s flight to Palma de Mallorca had been delayed by 13 hours, so she decided to book another flight and then claim back the costs from Ryanair, along with the legally required compensation under Europe’s EC-261 passenger rights regulations.
Ryanair refunded the passenger the original cost of her ticket but denied EC-261 compensation and refused to reimburse her for the difference in cost for the new flight she booked.
The woman took Ryanair to court in Austria, and after winning the case, Ryanair was ordered to pay the passenger and cover legal costs amounting to €892.87.
Despite the legal victory, Ryanair failed to clear the debt, resulting in a surprise visit by a court-sanctioned debt collector and a legal representative of the woman to Linz Airport on Monday, where a Ryanair plane was preparing for departure to London.
Ryanair flight FR-1694 was delayed by more than an hour as efforts were made to collect the debt without success. According to local media reports, the pilot even offered to pay the outstanding amount with a credit card, but the debt collector would only accept cash.
As Ryanair doesn’t carry cash on its planes, the aircraft was eventually allowed to depart, but only after an official court document, which has been referred to as a ‘cuckoo sticker’, was attached to the inside of the cabin.
The sticker essentially means that the court could assume control of the aircraft and auction it off if necessary in order to settle the debt.
The unexpected visit appears to have had the desired effect, however, and the Florianer-Anwaelte law firm, which has been representing the woman, confirmed that Ryanair had now settled the debt.
In 2021, Malaysian authorities seized a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Boeing 777 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, which was preparing for departure with passengers already on board, as part of a legal dispute that was taking place in London’s High Court.
The dispute centered on non-payment of aircraft lease dues, and two years later, a second PIA plane was also seized in Kuala Lumpur due to missing lease payments. At the time, it was reported that the airline had failed to pay more than $4 million in lease dues.
The aircraft belonged to AerCap Holdings, a little-known company outside the aviation industry, which is secretly the world’s largest owner of commercial aircraft.
AerCap leases out aircraft to some of the world’s biggest airlines under complex legal agreements, which allow carriers to build their fleets without incurring huge upfront costs.
