Ryanair left couple stranded in Krakow after questioning 80-year UK residency

An elderly couple who have lived in the United Kingdom for nearly 80 years were refused permission to board a Ryanair flight from Krakow in May and told they did not have the right to return to their home in Bury, Greater Manchester. Maria Krupa, 85, and her husband Czeslaw, 92, were visiting Poland to see surviving family when the airline stopped them at the gate because they could not produce proof of post-Brexit residency or a new electronic travel authorisation (ETA), according to the Guardian.

The Krupas arrived in Southampton in 1947 and 1948 as young dependants of displaced Polish service members who had fought under General Władysław Anders and later integrated into the British military command. They settled in Bury, married, raised a family and travelled extensively over the decades without ever being asked about their immigration status. “It was a big shock,” Maria told the Guardian. “We were very very disappointed and a bit upset because my husband takes a lot of medicine because of a stroke to his spinal cord.”

Ryanair staff told the couple they could not board because the airline would face a large fine. “We tried to explain to Ryanair that our fathers fought for Poland and England in the war, but they refused to let us on the plane,” Maria said. Czeslaw, who has difficulty walking and uses a mobility scooter, was on heavy medication after a spinal stroke and “just wanted to get home”, she added.

The couple were forced to leave Krakow airport late on a Sunday night and returned the next day with an ETA. To obtain it, they had to pose as tourists and claim they lived in Poland because the online form would not accept their British address. When they finally landed in England, Maria said, “we were terrified … we thought we are not going to lie again and have to tell the truth.”

Kate Smart, chief executive of the charity Settled, which helped the Krupas after they contacted Citizens Advice in Bury, said the charity is seeing “thousands of cases” like theirs. “It is a really common occurrence, almost on a daily basis,” she said. The EU settlement scheme was introduced in 2019 to give EU citizens living in the UK the documentary evidence they need to travel as they did before Brexit, but many elderly people who have British children and grandchildren have never thought to apply. “They have nobody in their family circle who thinks like immigrants so they don’t talk about things like ‘settled status’,” Smart explained.

Maria said she had never considered getting a British passport because she had never needed one in 80 years and wanted to maintain her Polish identity. “I love England … I’m very grateful to England … to have taken so many people … after the war. But I just thought it was important that we stay Polish,” she said. Settled submitted a no-time-limit application on the couple’s behalf, and the Home Office resolution centre granted them settled status last week. Smart praised the centre’s swift action but urged the government to address the wider problem, arguing that “a process should have kicked in at the airport” when such issues arise.

“It was a big, big shock because we never heard of this and we never thought for one minute that after nearly 80 years someone would tell us we couldn’t go home.”

: Maria Krupa