Ryanair has apologized to employees for failing to find accommodation after an image supposedly showing six of its crew asleep on the floor of an airport surfaced on social media.

However, the airline also claimed the picture was “staged.”

A total of 24 members of Ryanair staff are said to have spent the night in a room in Malaga Airport in Spain on Saturday.

The airline claimed that the crew had to stay at the airport because there were no hotel rooms available after many flights were diverted to Spain when Storm Leslie hit Portugal.

Ex-Ryanair pilot Jim Atkinson shared a Twitter picture purporting to show staff sleeping on the floor of the crew room.

Atkinson tweeted, “This is a Ryanair 737 crew based in Portugal, stranded in Malaga, Spain a couple of nights ago due to storms.

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“They are sleeping on the floor of the Ryanair crew room. RYR is earning €1.25 billion this year but will not put stranded crews in a hotel for the night.”

Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer Peter Bellew responded, claiming that all hotel rooms in the city were booked out.

“Unfortunately all hotels were completely booked out in Malaga. The storm created huge damage in Portugal. Later after this the crew moved to VIP lounge,” he said.

“Apologies to the crew we could not find accommodation.”

A Ryanair statement said, “This picture is clearly staged and no crew slept on the floor.

“Due to storms in Porto a number of flights diverted to Malaga and as this was a Spanish national holiday, hotels were fully booked.

 “The crew spent a short period of time in the crew room before being moved to a VIP lounge, and returned to Porto the next day (none of the crew operated flights).”

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