Ryanair blame cancellation on snow to save money

Karins

was the airport closed earlier that day ?
It is not Ryanair policy to fly empty planes anywhere so it sounds likely that the plane that arrived was a flight that had diverted earlier and probably left passengers elsewhere to travel by bus -once the airport re-opened the crew returned with the plane.
If the crew due to fly to Fuerteventura had reported on time for your flight then the liklihood is that by the time the plane was there and they were given times for de-icing and slot for departure that it would become evident they would run out of hours before they could complete the return trip.
At this stage they would have looked at standby crews but in the recent weather conditions it is likely many crews would be displaced and standbys already deployed.
Ryanair is a budget airline and if they had sufficient standbys to cover every flight costs would be a lot higher.
Unfortunately with the weather, ash clouds and air traffic control strikes it seems any flight these days is in doubt until airborne.