LEADING lowcost airline Ryanair has responded to criticism over its policy on carrying disabled or reduced mobility passengers.The airline says it welcomes all disabled/reduced mobility passengers on board its aircraft and says it carries hundreds of thousand of them every year.

"However, in accordance with our long standing safety procedures we will continue ­ for safety reasons only ­ to limit the number of disabled/mobility impaired passengers to four per flight."This limit was originally agreed with the UK's Disability Rights Commission for safety reasons. This is so our crew can attend to these passengers individually in the case of emergency evacuations."

Ryanair, which operates from City of Derry Airport and an extensive programme of scheduled services from Dublin, referring to a much publicised case recently added: "The only reason why these nine blind passengers and partially sighted people were asked to travel on a later flight was because

(1) they did not ­ as they are required ­ notify the airline of their disability at the time of booking and

(2) there were already 3 disabled passengers on board and who travelled on that flight.

"It would have been unsafe to allow a total of 12 disabled/reduced mobility passengers to travel on board the flight as we would have been unable to attend to them in the case of an emergency evacuation. "Ryanair's No. 1 priority at all times is the safety of its passengers and crew."