Irish budget carrier Ryanair generally releases one free car every month as a top prize on its popular onboard scratchcard game, so you can imagine the airline’s shock when three winning tickets were claimed on a single flight. The airline sells the cards at a cost of €2 and the game offers a range of prizes, including the chance to win a free car worth over €13,000. The airline confirms that the three winning tickets on its Milan to Madrid flight on April 20 was due to a printing error and that it now has no idea if there are any more such tickets available with the high-cost printing mistake.

It has launched a formal enquiry into the error with Brandforce, the company which runs the game, but is braced for an unexpected number of further winners. “We remain concerned that this print run – which covers €2 scratchcards up to the end of June – may contain further print errors leading to an unexpected ratio of car winners for Ryanair passengers playing our €2 scratchcard game,” said an airline spokesman.

Ryanair has confirmed that it will honour all of the winning tickets regardless of how many crop up between now and the end of June and will then “sort out our losses with Brandforce at the end of this print run”. The airline's tearful boss Michael O'Leary handed over the keys to the cars to the three lucky winners Ms Marta Garcia & Mr Roberto Saiz (Madrid), Mr Christopher Hueso (Madrid) and Mr Samuel Urrutia (Viscaya) yesterday (April 28).

"There could be more multiple car winners on Ryanair flights in May and June," he said, "but we sincerely hope not. We don’t mind giving away one free car each month, but three free cars on one flight is far too generous – even for Ryanair."

This is not the first time that the carrier’s scratchcards have landed it in the headlines. In February last year a passenger flying from Krakow to East Midlands eat a winning ticket after he was told that he would have to collect a €10,000 jackpot prize from the company that runs the competition as they did not carry such cash onboard the aircraft. To the cabin staff and passenger’s amazement, he became frustrated and started to eat his winning ticket. His rash actions meant he forfeited the prize which Ryanair subsequently donated to a children’s charity after an online poll.

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