WARNING - Ryanair 'online check in' farce

Doodles22

Yet again, one has to come in, make a mess and then go right off subject.

The OP came here to warn others, for advise to I suspect but some people on here just want to attack people.

Its uncalled for and not needed, so in other words, get your stuff and take your rubbish else where!!!!

peterbaker

I think you have missed the point, Doodles!

Some of us are of the mind that the bag drop implementation part of online check-in is a farce i.e. not in the public interest. (See the thread title).

Others disagree and bolster their argument by saying that (in their low cost mindsets) it is perfectly acceptable to support the low cost implementation with staff who will do as they are told i.e. will not empathise with the customer experience of the farce. That requires staff to be dishonest or at very least to sit on the fence with blank looks on their faces and mute responses.

I abhore dishonesty anywhere, but especially in customer service. And I further abhore the suggestion that empathising with the customer might be a sacking offence. Between the lines, PBS confirmed that in his world, that's how he sees it.

It is a sad reflection of more recent business culture within too many services companies. I guess I'll have to go back to school to find out if they really are teaching it in MBA courses now. Somehow at the best schools I think not :rolleyes:.

I look forward to an improved way.

rpb424

A bit of advice please....

We're flying from Stansted in a couple of weeks with 2 kids (ages 3 and 6) on a booking we made back in January. Given that this booking pre-dates the May cut-off for 'online only' check-in, Ryanair's FAQ states that we have the choice of online check-in or we can still opt for regular check-in if we wish (which we have paid for in the booking). My question is, which to choose, and will we actually find any difference when we get to Stansted, or is everyone still effectively in the same queue (i.e. traditional check-in and also bag drop only)? We will be there the requisite 2 hours before departure, and are taking no chances with tight timings. Having had bad experiences with Ryanair before, I can imagine the scenario where we choose regular check-in (i.e. don't preprint our boarding cards at home) and are then for some reason refused check-in, despite being entitled to it, without stumping up a further £40 per person reprint fee.

Bob_the_Saver

One of the main reasons the bag drop takes so long is the people who can't read
and try to take overweight bags and then delay the queue whilst they try and take stuff out or have to pay an excess.

richardw

rpb424 wrote: »

I can imagine the scenario where we choose regular check-in (i.e. don't preprint our boarding cards at home) and are then for some reason refused check-in, despite being entitled to it, without stumping up a further £40 per person reprint fee.

To avoid kerfuffle, I'd just do the online check-in and print the boarding cards.
Ryanair should be more honourable, but they just ain't.

Bob_the_Saver

How to use Ryanair.

1. Book a £1 flight (Pay with Electron, take only hand baggage)
2. Arrive at the airport very early and go straight through security
3. Go to gate and get on the big blue white and yellow thing when the flight's called.
4. Enjoy the short trip, it's cheaper than a Sunday Newspaper

Works for me every time.

rpb424

I'm asking primarily because if I choose regular check-in then is it likely or not to be a shorter queue? Or is it that everybody (regular check-in and bag drop) still joins the same queue and those that have checked in online go through exactly the same process at the desk apart from being issued with a boarding card?

My instinct is to choose for online check-in because then I am watertight against the reprint fees, although last weekends farce makes me nervous either way.

peterbaker

rpb424 wrote:

I'm asking primarily because if I choose regular check-in then is it likely or not to be a shorter queue?

This is a very very good question and you will not be surprised to learn that there is no right answer but never fear, because through bitter experience I can tell you some of the stuff to watch out for (I've tried to make this slightly humorous for you rpb, but this there are serious tacticalissues for you to absorb :

As you may have noticed from my posts in other threads, I went through Stansted recently myself in exactly yhe same situation as you ... booked early in the year ... bags for the hold ... kids in tow ... except mine are big enough to hump their own bags around thesedays!

Yes follow your instinct and do as Bob says - use online check-in and print your boarding passes from the comfort of home - for both outbound and return if the website lets you. The website allowed me to do that on the Friday before my Saturday outbound flight, even though the return was 15 days later on a Sunday.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to Spain, also make sure you put all the passport info into the Advanced Passenger Information part of Ryanair's website.

That's all your paperwork sorted so no worries once the boarding cards are safely in your bag with the passports.

Arrive at Stansted early. Sadly it seems that after allowing 30 minutes for the Long Term car park experience you might need a further 3 hours at the terminal to ensure you can relax and cover all the latest fiasco examples. But don't relax too much until you have actually got those hold bags checked-in and you are through security.

The fact seems to be that AT STANSTED THERE ARE NO LONGER ANY RYANAIR CHECK-IN DESKS FOR INDIVIDUALLY SPECIFIED FLIGHTS. If you have hold bags then everyone uses one of the two rows of unspecified "Bag Drop Desks" which were rows J and F last time I looked.

Your flight will be allocated to one row or the other, but if you start queuing 3 hours before the flight, it is quite likely that the information board will show your flight but not tell you whether you are to queue at J or F. If in doubt ASK. Don't just queue in the wrong one like I did and get to the desk finally and be told "This is J, you must go to F". :mad: Once in J or F, unless they change what they have been doing the last few weeks then all the desks are equal - it makes no difference what flight you are on except that if you arrive at any desk with less than 40 minutes to go, you are stuffed with no exceptions. So before there is the slightest risk of that happening become vocal and assertive and head for the business end of the queues before it is too late.

You will see a number of people messing about with the blue and yellow Ryanair self-service pods in the no man's land between rows J and F. Just walk on by - those pods are not relevant to you.

Tactically, you have to be a bit selfish when you are a couple travelling with small kids on Ryanair. That's for all queue situations. Make sure that one adult is always ready to be the pathfinder and is on the lookout for shortcuts in queues plus is assertive enough to "save a space for the family" and the other is not too shy to just follow up and join the pathfinder who has gained an advantage in the queue plus obtained a bit of elbow room for the family to move into.

Be aware that at Stansted there are no Ryanair flight announcements until you get out towards the remote gate areas. Use the boards to check your gate numbers and treble-check - more than once! It is not unknown for Ryanair to switch gate numbers and not tell customers until the last minute by poor tannoy mesages that get missed by passengers who got to the (wrong) gate early by following the boards and not checking again. If in doubt, ask and make sure the people around you at the gate are on the same flight. Two girls who sat next to me heading to Spain the other week were last on the plane before doors were shut. They had actually got as far as inside another plane heading to Rome before the final boarding card check at the top of the aircraft steps caught them just in the nick of time. I have seen that happen more than once. The gate boarding card checks and passport checks are often done in a rush by insufficiently trained staff whose eyes have glazed over and thats how these two got through.

If you don't have priority boarding I would recommend that you add it online before you check in online. On a busy flight with young kids, it can help save a little stress ... but don't waste it ... read on ...

Even with priority boarding then the pathfinder still needs to go to work again at the gate to work out exactly where the priority boarders are to queue. If you are first to the gate it is usually fairly easy to see the marker boards for "Priority Passengers" and "Others" and put yourself at the head of the right position. Theoretically at Stansted at all ryanair gates there are always two side-by-side queues separated by the usual ribbon tape and/or aluminium rails. If you arrive after fifty others then the two queues will quite likely be blurred into one with a continually inflating head caused by prospective queue-jumpers.

The Pathfinder needs to go to work spotting what it says on other people's boarding cards --- does it say Priority? Does it say Other? If Other then don't get stuck behind them. If Priority, make sure that they also know what they are doing and are not stuck behind a bunch of "Others". The "Others" are habitual queue-jumpers if they can get away with it and sadly very few will move out of the way for a family with young kids or anyone else unless asked. They will push right up to the gate waiting for the call "Any more Priority boarders?? ... No? OK then all Other boarders please!" And if you are behind them when that happens your priority boarding fee is wasted.

So. Boarding of Priority passengers is announced and you are through. You are passport checked through the gate at as near the head of the queue as you can manage .... Now then ... this is where the real fun for young families starts (NOT). Be organised with your handbaggage and papers. Now is not the time to wonder if you can carry it all AND keep the kids simultaneously safely shepherded under your wings.

With a 3 year old I expect you plan to have a pushchair with you right up to the aircraft steps even if the 3 year old will be walking down the steps to the concrete holding Mum or Dad's hand? If so your bag drop/check in desk agent will have asked you about the pushchair (are you taking it to the aircraft yourself?) and will have already put a hold baggage label on it.

Now then here's a tip before you even leave home ... practice folding up the pushchair in double quick time at home . Don't waste time realising you don't know how to fold it when you most need it folded and out of your hair:D

Most of Ryanair's gates at Stansted after you've shown your boarding cards and passports involve walking down two steep flights of wide steps to the concrete outside. Who will hold the kids hands whilst going down the steps? Who will fold the pushchair and put it to the left of the aircraft FRONT steps? Who has got the bags and passports and boarding cards? Make sure that if a pathfinder goes onboard first with the kids to find seats that they have the boarding cards ready again to show the cabin crew at the top of the front steps. Make sure that the one following up behind has their own boarding card to show at the top of the steps.

Who will try to overtake you on the wide steps even before you get to the concrete and definitely will do if you are faffing about at the bottom of the airrcaft steps with the pushchair? You guessed it ... the dreaded OTHERS! Don't bother looking around for someone to ask "Do I put the pushchair here?" ... just take my word for it and once it is folded and secure with no forgotten teddy bears stuck in it likely to fall out when the baggage-handler grabs it then just lay it to the forward side of the front steps. As a baggage labelled item I promise you it WILL be properly dealt with while you dash up the steps to join the pathfinder who hopefully has already found four seats together i.e. all three in a row on one side plus the aisle seat immediately opposite. I suppose you could try two and two putting the kids in the middle seats on both sides with the parents claiming the aisle seats and hope that the flights are not so busy that you have to give up one or both spare window seats. This is where it all becomes very tactical. Pretend to be engrossed in things which encourage the OTHERS to look elsewhere for their seats! It might work ... make no eye contact with the last stragglers coming up the aisle - don't give them the chance to dare to ask "Is that window seat free?" But be prepared for Plan B if they do. "Well we were hoping we mght have a little room for the kids to {insert preferred excuse} but if needs must then ... first little Johnnie here will have to go over next to little Freddie with Mum and I'll sit in the aisle seat this side". Now then Johnnie ... no need for tantrums. What's that? You feel sick? The straggler might at that stage say "Don't worry, I'll find another". Let them .

By then you should be looking forward to your first self-congratulatory Ryanair warm Carlsberg or hot chocolate

When you get off, your pushchair should be waiting for you roughly where you left it. Because you'll probably need it after a long day and landing at a huge airport like some of the new Spanish ones. Very occasionally the pushchair may not be where it shold be and will end up on the baggage carousel with the hold bags, but that is rare. Ask before you leave the area around the bottom of the steps if you can't immediately see your pushchair. The receiving baggage handlers are all trained to grab the pushchairs from their position immediately iside the hold door when they open it (as they were the last items put in the front hold at Stansted) and they will set them at the bottom of the steps even before the first passenger comes out.

Then ... have a good holiday and start guessing what variation of the Ryamair Bag Drop fiasco might apply at the foreign airport on the way back. Don't be surprised if there are actually specific check-in desks for your flight on the way back, and/or some which are old style check-in and some labelled Bag Drop only for Online Checked-in. For you it doesn't matter. Day before your holiday ends, don't forget to doublecheck your flightimes by using an internet cafe or hotel facility for example. Don't let anyone use your online printed boarding passes as a cue to take you out of the old-fashioned check-in desk line which might start first because it is the only desk manned when you arrive and try to put you on the end of the Bag Drop only queue which only started 30 minutes after you arrived but already now has 80 people in it. Just be assertive. All the airports Ryanair uses know that the Bag Drop implementation is a fiasco so just remind them if they get shirty with you that no, you would not like to leave the front of Q1 to join the back of Q2 but will frop your bags and get a pushchair baggage label at this one thanks very much.:rolleyes:

Anyway rpb, hope I haven't worried you too much, and that instead, you do find some of this useful. And have a great holiday:beer:

rpb424

Hi PeterBaker. Many thanks for a hugely informative (and huge!) reply.

We are in the fortunate position of having done this trip once a year for the last few years, and are hence reasonably savvy about the whole priority boarding and dealing with a buggy stuff. It also helps having a missus who is pretty assertive and not afraid to speak her mind when necessary.

This is the last time we'll be using Ryanair if at all possible - I think their customer service attitude and general 'profit before everything' model stinks. People are all too quick to say that you have to 'play the game' with Ryanair and that it is easy to circumvent the charges with Electron cards, hand baggage only etc., but aspects of this simply don't work when you are a family with young kids and all the necessary baggage to boot. Sadly its a game I'm not willing to play any more.

EasyJet beckons next year. Closer airport to us, although they only fly to our destination at certain times of year, where as Ryanair are daily.

Thanks again!

gartempe

I am thoroughly disgusted with Ryanair - if they know they are understaffed they should keep their check in desks open until everyone is checked in. I was once in Cairns in Australia and arrived at the airport late for my flight. 20 minutes before take off I was still waiting to check in - 10 minutes before when the call came out - anyone left flying to Brisbane please come forward. We checked in and made the flight. In Ryanairs defence I have travelled with them for 3 years as they are the cheapest. I know there are extras but I see the flight cost as my starting point and then add on what I need. Nobody makes me choose Ryanair but they have never been beaten on price and if they went bust I would have to move back to England.