At least three Ryanair flights were cancelled on Tuesday after Italian air traffic control and ground handling staff went on strike.
Passengers who were scheduled to leave Malta at 6.40am to go to Turin said the flight was initially marked as delayed to noon, only for it to be subsequently cancelled.
Passengers intending to catch the plane's return leg from Turin to Malta were checked in normally at 7am, but were left waiting till noon at the boarding gate.
They complained that after the flight was cancelled, there was no one from Ryanair to assist passengers rebook their flight.
Air traffic in Italy was disrupted on Tuesday by an Italian air traffic control and ground handling strike.
When contacted, a Ryanair spokesperson said this had forced it to cancel "a number" of flights, without specifying how many.
The spokesperson said that all passengers had been contacted by email and SMS and advised of their options: a full refund, rebooking on the next available flight or transferring to an alternative flight.
@Ryanair thx for not informing me about cancelling the flight UZ4INW from bergamo to malta, i was lucky that a friend contacted me about it or else i would have waited at the airport for nothing. Also i had to buy another flight with another airline and sleep at the airport thx.
— Rodrick theuma (@Rodrick3theuma) May 8, 2018
They apologised for the inconvenience caused by these “unjustified ATC disruptions” which, it said, were entirely outside its control and encouraged customers to sign A4E’s online petition, Keep Europe’s Skies Open.
Ryanair's advance warning to passengers did not seem to reach all of them, however. One passenger who was due to fly to Malta from Bergamo tweeted that he only found out that his flight was cancelled after a friend contacted him to let him know.
He said he had to buy a flight with another airline and sleep at the airport.
Other frustrated passengers complained that they had ended up out-of-pocket after booking last-minute indirect flights to return to Malta on Wednesday.
“You buy a flight costing €23 with Ryanair and end up being forced to buy another flight costing €350. For a family of four this works out to €1,200," one said.
Another felt they would have been better served had they booked a ticket with Malta's national airline.
“Air Malta would have surely sent a replacement aircraft or rebooked passengers on the following day's flight. But Ryanair do not even have a replacement aircraft in Malta,” the passenger said.