"Frustration at the Airport: Passengers Left Behind as Delays Cause Plane to Depart Without Them"

DOZENS of furious passengers were left stranded in the South of France as their Ryanair flight left without them.

More than 80 passengers were unable to make the journey from Marseille to Marrakech on Saturday night.

Dozens of passengers were left in Marseille-Provence Airport Credit: Getty The Ryanair flight was forced to take off after the agitated passengers became a security risk Credit: Getty

When questioned, staff shortages were the only answer bosses at Marseille-Provence Airport could muster.

The flight was originally scheduled to depart at 10:30pm, but was delayed because not all passengers had made it through security.

As minutes became hours, a number of angry passengers tried to force their way through security.

Those who had somehow already made it onto the aircraft also began to make their grievances known.

With passengers on both sides of the departure gate becoming increasingly frustrated, the airport decided the situation amounted to “security issue”.

Consequently, the flight was compelled to take off at around 1:50am.

The airport went on to explain that the airline must meet certain “operational obligations”.

These include returning the aircraft to a specific country for the night or having a crew available the following morning at a specific location.

However, this is scant consolation for those left on the ground who were told all they could do was file a complaint with the airline.

Marseille-Provence Airport has since launched an investigation to fully understand what happened.

For now, it has described the ordeal as an “exceptionally rare situation”.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time a group of passengers have been forced to deal with painfully long airport queues.

Only last week, travellers were left sweltering in the Italian heat, forced to wait in queues at Milan’s Linate airport.

Some passengers even began to vomit and pass out as they were made to wait for up to three hours.

Passenger Kiera, from Oldham, told the only about 30 people made it onto the flight to – with about 100 left behind in the queue.

“We got here at seven-thirty for our flight at eleven so we were super early,” she said.

“We got to Border Control and it was a massive queue of people.

“I wasn’t feeling great anyway because I think I’d got food poisoning.

“At about 10.50am they brought some water over for people, and when we got to the front of the queue someone asked us if we were going to Manchester, and told us our flight had just gone.”

These delays coincide with the rollout of new border control rules.

These require all non-EU nationals to register fingerprints and facial images.

The (EES) started a phased rollout on October 12, 2025 in 29 European countries but only became fully operational from April 10.

Disappointed passengers were told all they could do was register a complaint with the airline Credit: Getty