Ryanair apologises after refusing to let a prominent Arab Spring refugee board a flight to Ireland

Ryanair has been forced to apologise after refusing to let a prominent refugee board a flight to Ireland this morning.

Iyad El-Baghdadi, an Arab Spring activist raised in the UAE, was told he wasn’t allowed on the flight from Berlin to Dublin on Wednesday despite having the correct travel documents. 

The refugee obtained political asylum in Norway in 2015 and had a Norwegian travel papers when he was turned away from the 10.30am flight this morning.

Baghdadi tweeted to his 122,000 followers to ‘make some noise’ about the incident

He said Ryanair denied him boarding ‘for no reason’ and told him the supervisor was too busy to deal with the problem. 

Baghdadi tweeted to his 122,000 followers to ‘make some noise’ about the incident. 

Ryanair apologised following this backlash. The Irish airline said in a statement to MailOnline: ‘This customer was denied boarding because of an error made by our handling agent in Berlin. 

‘Ryanair has since made contact with the customer directly and he will travel with us later today. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.’  

Ryanair apologised following this backlash – but Baghdadi said he worries about refugees who don’t have a social media following

Baghdadi later revealed he’d been contacted by the airline and was being compensated. 

But he tweeted: ‘I’m thinking about all the refugees who do NOT have 122k followers on Twitter and don’t get such callbacks.’

Refugees from outside the EU are allowed entry into Ireland for short stays of up to 90 days if they have travel documents issued by a European member state.