Ryanair claimed that the disruption was the result of the French air traffic controllers' strike.
What could be the worst fear of any passenger travelling on a flight - losing luggage, forgetting tickets, or failing to arrive at the destination on time? It'll be a huge mess if you book a ticket for one destination and arrive somewhere entirely different. That too, a different nation, not just a place. That is what happened to the passengers who took a Ryanair flight to Portugal but landed in Spain.
The destination of the flight from Dublin was Faro, Portugal. But when it landed, the passengers found themselves in Spain's Malaga, more than 300 kilometers from its scheduled destination. The passengers have criticised the airline for the chaos.
One of them posted a series of tweets in which he said the flight left on September 16 at around 1 am, one hour before Faro Airport's curfew.
Talking about his ordeal, the passenger name Barry, tweeted: "Got on a @Ryanair flight to Faro and I'm in Malaga lads, you couldn't make this up."
The flight was forced to land at the Spanish airport after it missed the curfew at Faro Airport due to the air traffic control (ATC) strike.
Due to complications it attributes to the French air traffic control strike, Ryanair has apologised to customers after being forced to divert their flights from Portugal to Spain.
According to a spokesperson for the airline, circumstances "entirely beyond our control" forced the Friday flight from Dublin to Faro, to be rerouted to Malaga.
"This flight from Dublin to Faro (16 September) diverted to Malaga having missed Faro Airport's curfew due to disruption from the French air traffic control (ATC) strike, which was entirely beyond our control and impacted all airlines flying to/from/over France that day," the statement said.
Ryanair swiftly organised a bus to take travellers from Malaga Airport to their destination in order to minimise the inconvenience to passengers.
The 157 passengers had to then endure a five-hour bus ride to the Portuguese destination.
Barry gave details about the bus journey in his tweets.
The airline's decision to take off when it wouldn't have been able to land before the curfew angered and outraged the passengers.