Traveling can be both fun and stressful, but it was more of the latter for this Ryanair passenger who boarded a flight with the airline. Luckily, a Good Samaritan came to her rescue just in time.
Stephanie, who was at the Ibiza Airport in October 2020, was attempting to board a flight back to the London Stansted Airport with her three kids.
However, the distressed mother found herself in a predicament when the airline deemed her bag too big to be carried on board.
Ryanair told her she could only pay the oversized luggage fee using a card, but Stephanie only had cash with her, so paying it was impossible.
In a video filmed by a co-passenger, a young man is seen checking his phone near the boarding gate. Stephanie was getting overwhelmed, and the fact that her two young sons were running around the area didn’t help. One of her children is seen chasing after his little brother, who kept running around the area.
Seeing her distress, the anonymous young man assured her and said, “It’s alright, it’s alright. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for you.”
The kind stranger footed the £50 ($65) bill for Stephanie, and the day was saved!
Stephanie looks at him and says, “thank you so much,” extremely grateful that someone stepped in to help her. She buried her face in her hands, and the man tried to soothe her as she started to cry.
The man then turns to the desk and hands over his card to the ground staff. The clip ends with him waiting for his payment to get through while the oldest of Stephanie’s sons tries to calm his brother. “No, no, mama is upset,” the young boy said.
Twitter user @CoolCalmPoch shared the footage on social media and commended the man for his good deed.
“Well done to this young hero for paying the ridiculous Ryanair luggage charges for a distressed mother traveling with 3 kids (who wasn’t getting any leniency from ground staff). The flight from Ibiza to Stansted was half empty, not sure what difference a few cms would make,” he wrote.
In an interview with Daily Mail, Stephanie said she was initially told by airport staff that she didn’t need to check in her bag. However, she was later informed that it was too big and she had to pay a fee.
“The plane was half-full so I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t take my bag or put it in the hold,” she said.
Stephanie lives in Ibiza but made a short trip back to see her family in the UK. She doesn’t travel a lot, and it’s been a long time since she’s been on a plane.
“Plus with everything that’s going on, you can see on the video that I’m quite anxious,” she recalled. “This kind man turned around and said he would pay for me – it was an amazing act of kindness that he really didn’t need to do. He literally came out of nowhere, it was a crazy experience.”
If it wasn’t for him, Stephanie wouldn’t have been able to take her kids away for the weekend.
Once they got on the plane, the man sat a few rows back from them. Stephanie wanted to go over and give him a hug, but she couldn’t because of Covid.
Stephanie, a mother to twins aged nine and another one-year-old, said she has since contacted the passenger who filmed the incident. She wanted to track down the young man who paid her excess luggage charge, but she hadn’t found him yet.
“Apparently, he wants to remain anonymous. I just want to have a chat with him because I don’t think he realizes how nice a gesture it was and how much it meant to me,” Stephanie said.
Although we may never know this man’s name and this incident happened over a year ago, we want him to know what an awesome human being he is!
Click on the video below to see the moment he stepped in to help his co-passenger.
Well done to this young hero for paying the ridiculous Ryanair baggage charges for a distressed mother travelling with 3 kids (who wasn’t getting any leniency from ground staff). The flight from Ibiza to Stansted was half empty, not sure what difference a few cm would make. pic.twitter.com/RosvQKh8tw
— We are one (@CoolCalmPoch) October 17, 2020
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