We would all accept that when we travel on planes we have certain obligations and must comply with certain rules and abide by certain terms and conditions. But there are times when we simply cannot do so. Ryanair seems unwilling or unable to differentiate between people wilfully breaking rules, and people who find themselves on the wrong side of the rules through absolutely no fault of their own. One such passenger is a reader called Alison.“In a nutshell, I was flying from Knock to Tenerife,” her email begins. “Knock is one of those great airports where there are no liquid restrictions. I was travelling with just the hand luggage and was all checked through and at the gate ready to board.”It wasn’t to be. “Next thing, there was an announcement that the incoming flight had to divert to Shannon, so now we had to be bussed to Shannon and get the flight from there,” she writes. That led to a five-hour delay and a long bus ride but, as Alison points out, there was no compensation, on the basis that it was a weather-related issue.The length of the delay and the lack of financial compensation for it is not where she had a problem. She says that “all was grand until I was going through security at Shannon, where liquid restrictions apply, and so my two newly purchased expensive skincare items (150ml) were taken off me. They were worth approximately €75.” [ Bailiffs board Ryanair plane after airline refuses to pay compensation to passengerOpens in new window ]“I’ve been on to Ryanair and over and back, to which they just keep replying that it’s up to customers to abide by airport rules, and I’m not getting anywhere. I just feel it’s very unfair as I did abide and had cleared security in Knock and was ready to go. I wouldn’t have brought the items otherwise. Any words of wisdom or advice – or is it just time to let it go?”We can see where Alison is coming from. She did abide by the airport rules as they applied in Knock, and it was not her fault the airport changed at the last minute. We decided to contact Ryanair on Alison’s behalf to see whether we could get someone to at least accept that she had abided by the rules as they initially applied, although we were not remotely confident our correspondence would achieve anything. Meanwhile, we also heard from another reader with a much more serious issue with the airline.She booked a Ryanair flight to Edinburgh with a departure date in the middle of February last year to visit her brother. However, on the day before she was due to travel, her brother died. She contacted the airline and was told that a refund would be processed on receipt of a death certificate. “I have provided this on multiple occasions – both the initial hospital death cert copy and the further copy from the Scottish Register that was posted to my home in Ireland,” she writes. “I had requested updates to the case and did not receive a response,” she says. “My case was closed on the Ryanair portal and has since been removed. I followed up again in December-January and have been redirected to the updated T&Cs which came into effect in December 2025.”She says that the terms and conditions at the time of her booking and at the time of the refund request stated: “Death of an immediate family member who is not travelling with you. “If an immediate family member who is not travelling with you dies within 28 days of your booked flight, you may claim a refund equal to the fare you paid for the particular flight (or flights) you don’t take as a result, plus any associated taxes, fees and charges that you paid. You must make your claim before the date of the flight and provide a copy of the death certificate.“For the purpose of this clause, an immediate family member would be: your husband, wife or civil partner; a child or stepchild; a parent or step-parent; a brother, sister, stepbrother or stepsister; a grandparent or grandchild; or your mother/father-in-law, sister/brother-in-law, or daughter/son-in-law.”[ Ryanair: ‘We don’t have time to waste with stupid follow-up questions from your readers’Opens in new window ]Our reader notes that after the change in the airline’s terms and conditions they read: “Death of an immediate family member who is not travelling with you.“If an immediate family member who is not travelling with you passes away within 10 days prior to your booked flight, you may apply for Travel Credit, for an amount equal to the fare you paid for the particular flight (or flights) you don’t take as a result, plus any associated taxes, fees and charges that you paid. You must make your claim before the date of the flight and provide a copy of the death certificate.“For the purpose of this clause, an immediate family member would be: your husband, wife or civil partner; a child or stepchild; a parent or step-parent.”She says that “despite numerous emails / chats requests to honour their T&Cs, I am met only with – ‘please refer to policy’. I am unable to contact anyone in person and my cases are repeatedly closed as resolved on the portal. Not only is this a distressing time personally, but Ryanair refuse to honour their own T&Cs and continue to ignore my many attempts to resolve this.”She says the booking was for €560.We contacted the airline in connection with both queries. We received the following statement. “The refund in the case of death is not a contractual entitlement, but rather a goodwill gesture on behalf of Ryanair. If passengers have concerns about the health of wider relatives at time of booking, then they should take out travel insurance as recommended by Ryanair.“We’ve looked into this case and regret that our customer service agent made an error in applying our current bereavement policy (which dates from April 2025) to this case, when the booking was dated Feb 2025, and therefore the old policy should have been applied. Our customer service team authorised and processed a refund to this passenger last week prior to your query.”It is worth pointing out that although the refund might have been processed “prior” to our query, it was made after our reader had spent months trying to have it processed, and only after she had contacted us and CCed the airline. We went back to the airline and asked why it had changed its Ts&Cs to exclude many family members and replace cash refunds with credit notes and in response it said the following:“We are a ‘no refund’ airline. All passengers are aware of, and agree to this at time of booking. We offer some limited refunds - as a goodwill gesture only – in limited cases of bereavement and / or very serious illness. We reserve the right to review or amend these policies at all times. “In such goodwill circumstances it is up to us to decide whether we offer a credit note or a cash refund. We choose credit notes which encourages passengers to travel again – hopefully soon. “We don’t make any determinations about the closeness of relatives but since April 2025, we no longer provide refunds (of non-refundable tickets) in cases of brothers, sisters, in-laws etc.”With regard to the other query, the airline said: “The issue of passenger liquids at airports is a matter for each individual airport security rules. Much as we regret that this passenger’s cosmetics exceeded the permitted limit in Shannon, it has nothing to do with Ryanair.”Hmm. “Nothing to do with Ryanair” is a bit of a stretch, given it was Ryanair who bussed our reader to Shannon – quite some distance from the airport she was supposed to fly out of. It was a Ryanair flight that was supposed to depart from Knock, but ended up departing from Shannon. We did not expect the airline to stump up for the cosmetics – and it certainly has no legal obligation to do so – but the idea that it would abdicate all responsibility for her plight is, frankly, absurd. We made that point to the airline and it did not take it kindly. We will publish the response in full, if only for comic value.“Your suggestion that a ‘bad weather diversion’ to Shannon has everything to do with Ryanair is as always an invention on your part. We are not responsible for anything passengers bring as hand luggage and if the airport security in Shannon chose not to allow certain cosmetics be brought through airport security, then that is a matter for them and each individual passenger. It has nothing to do with the airline and your suggestion that the airline ‘would do something for her’ is, ‘frankly ridiculous’. “We believe that our 208m (and growing) passengers prefer that we minimise disruptions to our customers during bad weather and minimise our fares by adhering strictly to our simple but agreed polices, while you and your ever declining readership make inventions about what “most people” would agree, when you have no insight whatsoever into what “most people” think.”