British tourist detained and deported from Morocco after leaving passport on Ryanair flight

A British tourist was detained and later deported from Morocco after Ryanair staff would not allow her to reboard a flight to retrieve her passport, which she had left on her seat on the Edinburgh-to-Marrakesh service.

Rebecca McCurry, 22, from Lochgilphead, Scotland, arrived in Marrakesh with three friends and realized about five minutes after stepping off the plane that her passport was still on board. She says airport staff told her there was no problem and that they would inform Ryanair, but she was subsequently denied reentry to the aircraft. Ryanair, however, has since said the passenger misplaced the passport onboard and was correctly denied entry to the country, with the matter later handled through the airline’s lost-property channels and the local authorities.

McCurry says she was told a sweep of the plane had been conducted and nothing had been found, while she maintains that the passport was indeed on board and could later be recovered by travelers on the return flight. She described how the situation escalated as she was pulled into a three-hour interrogation by Moroccan border police, whom she described as intimidating and dismissive. She says police laughed at her and referred to her as a “little girl,” and she was warned she might be detained for up to five days before a deportation flight could be arranged.

The 11-hour ordeal culminated in her deportation to Manchester. Her father drove six hours to pick her up, while the flight she had arrived on remained on the runway for much of the day. McCurry says the experience exacerbated chronic pain she suffers and triggered muscle spasms and fainting due to the stress.

Eventually, McCurry learned that a month after the incident in July, her passport was returned to her in August. She says a friend who was on the return journey to Edinburgh found the passport on the plane, exactly where she left it, but Ryanair staff took it from that friend. McCurry then spent weeks trying to recover the document, ultimately paying about 30 pounds to retrieve it herself at the airport.

She has struggled to file a complaint with Ryanair, saying multiple channels—chatbots, emails, and other methods—have not yielded a resolution. “If you have a bad experience with them, there’s absolutely nothing the customer can do,” she said in an interview. She added that the experience has left her afraid to fly again.

Ryanair responded with a statement noting that the passenger “misplaced their passport onboard their flight from Edinburgh to Marrakesh on the 31 July and subsequently was denied entry into Marrakesh.” The airline said it reaccommodated the passenger on the next available flight to the UK later that day and that the passenger did not present a valid passport upon arrival at Marrakesh Airport. The airline said the passport was handed over to lost-property at Edinburgh Airport after being located by crew on the plane. It stressed that all passengers must present the correct travel documentation required by the destination country and that it follows its lost-property procedures at the relevant airports.

Authorities in Morocco’s air-transport authority were contacted for comment, but a spokesperson noted that they had no immediate further details to provide at the time. The Office National des Aéroports was not immediately available to provide additional insight on the case.

The incident has drawn attention to the importance of travelers carrying valid documentation and to the complexities that can arise when a passport is left behind or not presented on arrival. McCurry’s case is being cited by some travelers as a cautionary tale about confirming documentation and the potential difficulties of reclaiming lost property and seeking redress after such events.