Ryanair not paying compensation

nico26

When it all boils down to it the airlines brought this ruling upon themselves. If they had been prepared to accommodate people when they cancelled flights willy nilly leaving people stranded and not giving a hoot, this ruling would not have had to be put in place.

Ryanair being one of them.

nico26

richardw wrote: »

er publicity stunt, n'est pas?

Well the publicity for Ryanair has not been good over here,while Easy Jet has been getting all the praise. if it was a stunt I think this one might just have backfired.

BargainMad_3

O'Leary is on TV now saying that the legislation is still grossly unfair and he wants to challenge it and bring it into line with other forms of transport.

It looks like he wants to recover these duty of care costs from the governments that closed down the airspace (the taxpayer!).

He lost his temper because the interviewer kept using the word "compensation" when it should be duty of care costs.

He kept stressing "reasonable" costs and said "unreasonable" costs will not be reimbursed.

Doc_N

BargainMad wrote: »

Ryanair have said they WILL pay for "reasonable, receipted expenses" after all and not limit these to the cost of the ticket.

At least they have dropped their defiance.

So they've climbed down - good. What an own-goal.

I guess even O'Leary realised the damage they were doing to themselves by this - and the impossibility of getting away with it.

A clear warning of what they're capable of, though, and how much better off you're likely to be if you avoid them altogether.

mira666

I think if Ryanair or any other airline had made immediate provision to transport back passenger's delayed on the continent via coach etc then they could be limited in what compensation to offer as they have made an effort to resolve the situation, as no assistance was often forthcoming then they should take it on the chin and pay up

PhylPho

Re O'Leary / Ryanair:

1) At around the same time that O'Leary was resorting to not untypical behaviour -- can't pay / won't play -- the CEO of Flybe raised exactly the same point: that neither he, his airline nor the regulators could have foreseen as catastrophic an event as a volcano venting through a glacier.

The financial burden imposed on his (small) airline was considerable and he believed the EU's "duty of care" requirement was -- now -- unintentionally punitive. However: Flybe would stand by the commitment it had made to duty of care and none of its passengers would be denied that to which they were entitled under the d of c provisions.

Additionally though, Flybe would ask the regulators to now look carefully at the financial consequences of those provisions with a view to revision / amendment in light of the recent 'extraordinary' event. Flybe would also hope that, on an EC-wide basis, national governments would come together to find a way of providing financial support for all carriers caught up in this situation.

2) Compare and contrast the above perfectly reasoned, perfectly calm and perfectly fair statement with the initial brusque posturing of Ryanair -- a posturing calculated to intimidate the regulators but, in an inevitable and foreseeable side-effect, to intimidate Ryanair pax, too.

3) Compare and contrast Ryanair's original braggadaccio with its successively moderated stance as awareness has dawned that if it carried on like that, it would emerge neither as the industry's nor the people's champion. National flag carriers have little time for Ryanair and having Mr O'Leary as their representative spokesperson or campaign leader is to them about as attractive a proposition as was the volcanic ash cloud.

Ryanair's successively moderated stance reflects its own dawning awareness that its playground bullying hasn't made it the leader of the pack but isolated it in a corner, far from the likes, say, of Easyjet, its principal rival, which has been astute enough and fair enough to adopt the same approach to this situation as Flybe.

As to my own position re Ryanair / O'Leary. Of course I don't "hate" Ryanair. I've flown with it and the flight was good, the cabin crew excellent, and as a no-frills carrier it delivered 100% on the total fare price paid.

But that doesn't in any way minimise my regret -- as a consumer -- that Ryanair's tactics must be anathema to anyone who believes that the essence of commerce is transactional transparency.

Ryanair's business model has long depended on opacity, not clarity, and as a consumer I find that disheartening, setting as it has a precedent for others to follow (though Ryanair's ability to even obfuscate the destinations into which it actually flies is still cheek of the first order.)

Anyway.

The various defences of Ryanair rehearsed on here are probably academic now given that after the initial bluster, Ryanair now appears to be back-tracking.

But really: there should not have been anything from which to back-track in the first place: had Ryanair any thought at all for what so many of its passengers are feeling at this time it would have had sufficient sensitivity to emulate, say, Easyjet or Flybe. But it didn't.

Finally. . . some posts here do seem to wish to itemise the number of angels likely to dance on the head of a pin by focusing in on semantics instead of substance.

The phrase 'Ryanair signed up to' has been used by both myself and others here not as a representation of an actual, physical process but as a shorthand for the way all of us -- individuals and companies alike -- exist within an accepted regulatory framework.

Of course Ryanair didn't physically "sign up" any more than I or anyone else on here physically signs up to the Road Traffic Act when we back our car out of the garage.

What we do when we take our car out on the highway is conform to statutory and regulatory obligations, or suffer the consequences for non-compliance.

What an airline does when it puts one of its aircraft up in the skies is conform to statutory and regulatory obligations or suffer the consequences of non-compliance.

If, as seems to be the view of some on here, Ryanair is to be exempted from such compliance, then the next time there's an unexpected hike in my Road Tax, I'll just say well, I can't afford this and I'm not going to pay this.

And when I'm stopped by the police for driving in breach of the regulations I'll refer them to Mr O'Leary and the kind of defence rehearsed on his behalf on this thread.

PhylPho

Cityboy wrote: »

Maybe MOL's backtracking may have had something to do with also demanding govt or european financial assistance for recent events. . .

How delicately put, cityboy: such restraint!

Personally, I'm inclined to think Ryanair has been deliberately misrepresented by a hostile media and that when it was quoted as saying it would not meet duty of care obligations beyond the price of the issued ticket, what the airline actually said was that it fully intended to meet all its obligations because where Ryanair is concerned, the passenger, not profit, is king.

On a quite unrelated matter: quite why Stelios has such a broad grin on his face this morning, I've absolutely no idea.

Why, in light of what's happened here, someone would prefer to fly with Easyjet rather than Ryanair escapes me.

BargainMad_3

"Who Pays?" has become like a game of hot potato....

The insurers soon chucked it at the airlines, safe in the knowledge that they had an obligation under the EU regulation.

The airlines have tried to get rid of it but they can't, but they are now aiming to throw it at the Governments who closed down the airspace.

The Governments throw it at the taxpayer and the hot potato has nowhere else to go.............

planetf1

I listened the the flybe guy on bbc last night and thought he answered the question excellently. I have no issue with the airlines raising these issues about the regulations, the impacts of such extreme events as we see, but in a reasoned way. FlyBe were absolutely spot on here.

Ryan Air was another story. They've always been somewhat difficult but I have to say this latest part made me remind myself NEVER to fly ryan air. All I hear is negative (apart from of course the price)

Some co's have come out of this quite nicely from a PR perspective
- Ba hasn't done bad. I personally have some issues with WW's publicity around opening air space -- not that I disagree 100%, but a bit uncomfortable with it. They seem to have been ok for C.S
- Celebrity cruises really scored a goal being fortunate enough to have a ship they could send Southampton-Bilbao and back in lieu of a promotional event. A win/win for those stuck and the company. A family members works for a competitor, but credit where credit's due. A very very smart move.
- Thomas Cook/Thomas etc - ie package companies appear to have demonstrated one of the benefts of package operators -- "total care" -- with ppl not even in general having to incur any expense at all. all handled for them, with access to many hotels, transport etc.
- Eurostar - whilst initially only selling regular pricey fared - they did introduce a discount and managed to run lots of trains. A bit of a recover after the ice incidents.
- Channel ferries -- they seemed to keep trucking and improve capacity. I did see quite a few ppl on news complaining at paying £50 a ticket but frankly that seems a fair short notice fare to me -- I think the criticism was unwarranted.
- Govmnt - negative. They seemed to do nothing until it was time to blame someone. I think things are softened a little now
- NATS - positive they acted with the info they had at the time. Arguably going beyond their remit, but since noone else was saying anything I think there was no option.
- lots of other ppl behind the scenes - positive I guess. they say safety remains key. I hope so. Hopefully they had real facts to help in decision making. Of course it takes some time. In the circumstances sounds like it was as quick as could be reasonably expected.

planetf1

No idea why all my formatting/newlines got lost. Sorry for readbility

-- Fixed. Caused by use of "noscript" extension (to avoid nasty flash adverts in other sites, MSE now added as allowed!)