WATCH: Ryanair claims to expose controversial ‘fake’ photo of cabin crew asleep on floor of airport

A photo of Ryanair cabin crew asleep on a floor in Malaga Airport after they failed to secure overnight accommodation was circulated widely in recent days.

A video posted on the Ryanair Twitter account claims to “expose” a “fake” photograph of Ryanair cabin crew asleep on a floor in Malaga Airport after they failed to secure overnight accommodation last weekend.

The Ryanair employees were left stranded at Malaga Airport on Saturday, 13 October after a number of flights were diverted to Malaga due to the impact of Storm Leslie in Portugal.

A photo of the Ryanair crew asleep on the floor gained traction online, which prompted Ryanair to claim that the photo was “staged” and that the situation came about as all hotels were fully booked due to it being a national holiday in Spain.

“This picture is clearly staged and no crew ‘slept on the floor’,” a Ryanair spokesperson said in response to the photo being circulated at the weekend.

“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).”

Union officials claimed that, despite being moved to a VIP lounge, Ryanair staff were not provided with food and drink and that 24 crew members were forced to share eight seats for a period of over four hours.

A statement issued on Monday by Portuguese union SNPVAC promised to “produce a formal complaint to all the relevant civil aviation authorities” and that it expected “an urgent and robust intervention so that events like this won’t happen again”.

“This episode also demonstrates the reasons that took the workers in Ryanair to an industrial dispute and, if there were any doubts, everyone can witness the way Ryanair treats their customers and employees,” the statement concluded.

Ryanair responded on Wednesday by posting CCTV footage of the employees who were stranded at Malaga Airport, footage which the airline says “exposes fake photo of cabin crew sleeping in crew room”.

The apparent staging of the photo takes place in the top left corner of the screen, with several crew members seen to lie on the floor early in the footage before rising to their feet again before the footage concludes.

The video can be seen in full below.

Ryanair exposes fake photo of cabin crew sleeping in crew room. Watch video here: pic.twitter.com/tzTn6EHsKH — Ryanair (@Ryanair) October 17, 2018