UPDATE: |Woman escorted off Ryanair flight by police after row over £7 Pringles bill News

Ann-Marie Murray, 53, said the end of her birthday trip was ‘ruined’ by the incident.

A woman was escorted off a Ryanair plane by police after tucking into a tube of Pringles before paying. Ann-Marie Murray, 55, claims she ‘tried to pay’ for her £7 bill for crisps, water and cola from the Ryanair trolley on a flight from Tenerife to Bristol on March 28.

But an in-flight card machine would not accept payment and Ann-Marie had no cash on her. Flight attendants called in the cops on the Gloucestershire mum for being ‘disruptive’ after she proceeded to open her snacks before payment, The Mirror reports.

“I thought it was a joke when the crew said they had called the police,” Ann-Marie said. “I wasn’t disruptive. There were no raised voices.

“I was doing my best to pay. I tried to tap and pay, but the machine didn’t work. They tried with another machine and when it still didn’t go through I offered to get cash when we landed but they said I couldn’t do that.”

Ann-Marie said she was left ‘shocked’ when three officers came onboard the aircraft and asked her and her partner to leave.

“It was so embarrassing. I had done everything I could to resolve it,” she said. “They then told the police I had refused to pay, but that wasn’t the case. I wanted to pay, but my card didn’t work and I had no cash.”

The housing association worker from Gloucester was on her way home from a four-night mini-break to the Canary Islands to celebrate her birthday when the incident occurred. She said she had seen another passenger struggle to pay with a chip and pin card from the same bank and was dismayed by Ryanair staff’s ‘unpragmatic’ reaction.

“Luckily the police were lovely and after I explained the situation they took me to a cash machine and I was able to pay the £7. The officers were laughing and couldn’t believe it,” she said.

The couple were then told they’d been banned from flying Ryanair, Ann-Marie said. “But I’d never fly with them again anyway after what happened.”

Avon and Somerset Police said they’d ‘received a report of a disruptive passenger’ on an inbound flight to Bristol airport, but that officers ‘quickly established it related to a civil dispute and no action was taken’.

Ryanair said: “During this flight, this passenger attempted to purchase food onboard, however the card did not process payment. As crew looked to resolve the payment issue, this passenger proceeded to ignore crew instructions, consume the items prior to payment and subsequently became disruptive.

“The aircraft was met by local police upon arrival at Bristol Airport and this passenger was removed. Ryanair has a strict zero tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct and will continue to take decisive action to combat unruly passenger behaviour, ensuring that all passengers and crew travel in a safe and respectful environment, without unnecessary disruption.”