A case of pre-flight rage, which landed a woman in court last month for punching a Ryanair ground official, has taken a twist, with three separate people coming forward to complain about the same airline representative’s attitude.
One of the complainants alleged that supervisor Victoria Mifsud Tommasi accused him of physically assaulting her last September in circumstances similar to those raised in the recent court case.
Amanda Edwards, a Scottish woman living in Gozo, was found guilty of punching Ms Mifsud Tommasi after being told she would have to pay a fine because her carry-on luggage was too big.
She was given a three-month conditional discharge but continues to protest her innocence.
“I did not hit her. All I did was throw my passport at her,” she conceded.
“My bag fit the frame. It was a squeeze but it fit. Then this woman (Ms Mifsud Tommasi) began picking on me.”
This version of events is contested by a woman who says she was in the boarding queue for the same flight.
“I saw the whole thing. The woman (Ms Edwards) got aggressive straightaway and eventually punched the Ryanair woman. My kids are still going on about it,” Julie Loporto said.
Complaints about Ms Mifsud Tommasi have since reached The Times.
“Ms Mifsud Tommasi tried to do the very same thing with us,” said Kenneth Rizzo, who condemned any act of aggression but said he understood Ms Edwards’s anger and frustration.
He said that, last September, Ms Mifsud Tommasi insisted on charging him and his family for having oversized luggage, even though their suitcase fitted in the rack.
Mr Rizzo claimed that Ms Mifsud Tommasi covered her name tag and snatched their boarding passes, prompting him to summon airport police.
He charged that the Ryanair supervisor then told the police “that we physically attacked and hit her”. Mr Rizzo insisted that was definitely not the case.
A police statement confirmed that a complaint had been lodged, but subsequently dropped, by Ms Mifsud Tommasi.
A video taken by Mr Rizzo and sent to The Times shows the bag, which Mr Rizzo insisted was the one in question, resting in a Ryanair cabin luggage rack.
“Fellow passengers, her colleagues at the gate, her colleague between the plane and the gate, the flight crew and the airport police all admitted we were right,” he wrote.
Francesca Farrugia had a similar story to tell. “It was April 2011 and we were on our way to Italy. One of the ground staff started picking on us because of our hand luggage.
“I thought it fitted the rack but we were ready to pay the fine and be done with it. But she was awful about it, a really nasty piece of work. She left me sobbing on the plane.”
Ms Farrugia confirmed that the staff member in question was Ms Mifsud Tommasi. She, however, never took the matter further.
There was one further allegation of poor customer service.
“Ms Mifsud Tommasi forced me to pay a fine for my hand luggage despite it fitting (in the rack) and was rude and arrogant throughout. To add insult to injury, I was then made to carry the bag with me onto the plane anyway,” an irate Francis Caruana recounted.
Both Mr Rizzo and Mr Caruana filed complaints, one with Globe Ground Malta – Ryanair’s local handling agents and Ms Mifsud Tommasi’s employer – and the other with Ryanair and the Malta Tourism Authority.
Their complaints got nowhere, however, they pointed out.
Globe Ground informed Mr Rizzo they had investigated his complaint and forwarded their findings to Ryanair, without saying what the findings were.
Mr Rizzo said he subsequently received a letter from the low-cost airline saying that since they hadn’t paid any excess luggage fee they had nothing to complain about.
“My father was so disgusted he threw the letter in the bin.”
Mr Caruana received an apology from Ryanair and an assurance that his comments had been forwarded to Ryanair’s operations manager in Malta. He never heard anything else, he added.
When contacted, Globe Ground chief operations officer Joe Bugeja said he had “no record of any complaint regarding Mr Caruana”.
“I can only investigate complaints that are brought to my attention. We investigate all complaints and whenever Ryanair receives a complaint the first thing it does is speak to us,” he said.
Mr Bugeja, who said he was also replying on behalf of Ms Mifsud Tommasi, said staff received customer service training upon joining the company “with regular refreshers in addition to briefings on particular carrier procedures”.
He assured The Times that ground staff were not incentivised – financially or otherwise – to mark hand luggage as oversized.
Despite having told Mr Rizzo, in writing, that his complaint had been investigated, he told The Times that “the incident with Ms Edwards was the first case of physical assault to the best of my knowledge” involving Ms Mifsud Tommasi.
He said that although there was no evidence of a physical altercation in Mr Rizzo’s case, the complainant had appeared “very aggressive”.
On his part, Mr Rizzo insisted that Ms Mifsud Tommasi deserved to be disciplined for the “numerous provocations she is causing at the airport” and sent Ms Edwards a message: “If you decide to sue Ms Mifsud Tommasi, Globe Ground or Ryanair for damages, you have my testimony in court....I will never forget the brutal ordeal she made us pass through.”
Ms Mifsud Tommasi declined to respond directly to the allegations.