Paying for Ryannair alternative flight

awallace

My husband and our 2 year old daughter have just returned from Tenerife. We had to come back urgently as the country was in lockdown and airlines were grounding flights. Ryannair advised all passengers leaving Spain from 21 March to move their flight to an alternative date. They were stopping flights from Tenerife from this date and our original flight on 21 March was cancelled. We changed our flight to one leaving on 20 March and Ryannair said we had to pay the price difference between the cost of this and the cost of our original flight. The price difference was over £1100. We paid as we were desperate and didn't want to get stuck. Now we are home,  I'm questioning whether they are allowed to do this? I thought they had to put you on an alternative flight at no extra cost?