'Ryanair, time to come clean: The latest rises are a step too far.' blog discussion

jamescredmond

I'm having some fun reading these posts.
there goes dmg24 again, full of 'I'mfullofcommonsenseme' posts and simplistic points, while peterbaker gives in-depth analysis on ryanair's cultural and economic impact which could take a month to read.

here's my 2p-worth.

on the positive:

use ryanair's website with care. martin points to a certain lack of clarity - which is true - so exercise a degree of savvy and enter into an 'I'm on your case, o'leary' mindset. not too difficult, even fo me.

reflect on what ryanair has achieved over the past 20 years - forcing down fares and obliging other industry players to follow suit. (this doesn't mean that nobody else would've come along and done same but ryanair led the way and it would be churlish not to recognise this).

now consider the negatives:

don't consider ryanair unless you're broke,desperate,youngish, childless, in good health,unfussy about hygenic cabin space, delays initiated by ryanair, route diversions, surly/rude crew, have cabin luggage only, can tolerate 2 hour bus transfers to destination on some routes, an absence of airport staff, can overcome the near-impossible task of contacting ryanair when things go wrong, prepared to seek legal redress to claim refunds............

recently I read that ryanair's share price is down by 50% over the last year, with a fall-off of 25% in numbers flying. of course there are a no. of factors
behind these figures but one that stood out was customer dissatisfaction with levels of service/support. D'oh!! if this is the case then the psychotic o'leary really has got his work cut out.

but wait. I've got an idea. slap another £10 on my £14.99 ticket (I won't mind, honest) and give me the level of service I expect and receive from other co.s.

oh, and sort out the baggage nonsense. And the advertising. ryanair butts have just taken another serious kicking re the schoolgirl advert.

I'll leave the last word to the people who really know:

www.ryanaircampaign.org

some of the posts could've been written by stephen king himself.

peterbaker

alared wrote: »

Ryanair`s booking process gives you choice and a complete break down of cost as you go through the proceedure....Maybe I`m missing something but it seems you get choice,choice and yet more choice and a clear indication of cost at each stage of the booking.

Yes you are missing something. You can't get a total until you put in your personal details now.

The man has done the country a favour and if it wasn`t for him you wouldn`t be flying to Spain for £20.

BA, would and have done in the past, rip you off for more like £120

Well the flights I am trying to book are for six months time yet whichever way I cut it, I can't get down to £120 with Ryanair - the bags alone were £18 per person - that's what prompted me to write this time

Oh and BTW Trev / taxiphil, when Gordon dreamed up Air Passenger Duty and let the airlines collect it for him, he didn't expect the biggest airline to pocket the tax themselves at every opportunity.

taxiphil

peterbaker wrote: »

Oh and BTW Trev / taxiphil, when Gordon dreamed up Air Passenger Duty and let the airlines collect it for him, he didn't expect the biggest airline to pocket the tax themselves at every opportunity.

I presume you're referring to the £15 deterrent that Ryanair charge in admin fees for refunding APD, or otherwise they pocket the APD.

Well, yes I agree it's totally wrong to keep tax that doesn't belong to them and is a "black profit". They should maybe give the APD to charity if people don't reclaim it, or better still remove the £15 sting and just give it back to its rightful owners.

But that's an issue between the consumer and the airline. The government is still getting its stealth tax for everyone who does fly.

The government isn't being fleeced by Ryanair pocketing the APD when people don't turn up to fly, since it's not an applicable tax anyway in those circumstances.

So Ryanair is actually paying into Brown's coffers, albeit through an alternative means to fuel duty, and therefore I disagree with your earlier statement that Ryanair is being subsidised by the government. On the contrary - they're collecting millions in taxes and passing them on to the government in the same way that Shell and Esso do.

Edinburghlass_2

I've only flown with Ryan Air to Dublin but what did make me smile was all the people who had paid for piority booking then going and standing in a queue at the gate for some 20 minutes while I who hadn't, stayed in my seat until the queues went down and funnily enough still got a seat on the plane

Jolly_Roger

The question we all need to ask ourselves is: how does Ryanair make money? If it really did sell loads of seats at below cost prices, which it appears to do, but still returns a profit then it has to claw money back somehow. Hence the rising level of surcharges being made.
Reading posts on the ryanaircampaign.org website is an absolute education. Whether flights actually take place or not, Ryanair has ways to make money out of passengers. For example, if your flight from a foreign destination is cancelled customer service is 100% naff. They will offer you an 0906 premium rate number to call, but the whole experience will border on the useless -and you will have paid them, even though it is they that have cancelled your flight and offered nothing in the way of help!
As an organisation, Ryanair is simply brilliant, because it looks at ways of making additional cash at EVERY stage of the interface process between passenger and airline. The fact that many of the processes in place are clearly disgusting is extremely disturbing.
So, why is Ryanair included on Flight Checker? Sure, some people do save money, but look at the grief involved! The headline price for tickets is seldom the one a sizeable group of people actually end up paying!
I would like to leave you with one thought: reading posts from angry ex-Ryanair passengers proves beyond reasonable doubt that a lot of sharp practice is taking place. That is upfront; it is in the public gaze.
But what might be happening behind the scenes, say, in the field of aircraft maintenance? If you think there aren't shortcuts to be made in that area, then think again! Ryanair flights do seem to be subject to an awful lot of "technical problems" that are beyond the company's control...

Alfie_E

MSE_Martin wrote: »

In the past Ryanair at least let Visa Electron cardholders pay for free. Yet now everyone needs to pay, which surely means the basis is incorrect. The fact that you can’t pay without paying a £1 surcharge means that it’s part of the price, and hence should be included as such.

Where has this information come from? The Ryanair page Why is there a handling charge when I reserve my flights? still states ‘There is no charge associated with Visa Electron card transactions.’ I’ve just gone and tried booking two different lots of flights, and neither time did it add on a handling fee if I selected Visa Electon from the drop down list. If the website had been adding a handling fee for Visa Electon cards, it would seem it was a cоck-up on the Ryanair website front.

mystic_trev

Well spotted! It looks like Martin may have got his facts wrong re charges for Visa Electron!

jezza2412

Why does everyone just pick on Ryanair?

I've just booked a trip to Poland (researched using MSE's Flightchecker of course- thanks!): I'm going out on EasyJet who charged me £1.50 for my VISA Delta debit card payment, and I'm coming back with Wizzair who charged me £2.50!!! :mad: for using the same debit card.

AHAR

Jolly_Roger wrote: »

But what might be happening behind the scenes, say, in the field of aircraft maintenance? If you think there aren't shortcuts to be made in that area, then think again! Ryanair flights do seem to be subject to an awful lot of "technical problems" that are beyond the company's control...

I once heard that there's a saying in the airline industry which goes something along the lines of: "If you think safety is expensive, it's nothing compared to having an accident"

Ryanair's ticket pricing system may be a bit daft but I think it's a huge jump to suggest they don't take maintenance extremely seriously.

jamescredmond

AHAR wrote: »

I once heard that there's a saying in the airline industry which goes something along the lines of: "If you think safety is expensive, it's nothing compared to having an accident"

Ryanair's ticket pricing system may be a bit daft but I think it's a huge jump to suggest they don't take maintenance extremely seriously.

www.ryan-be-fair.org holds some posts that call into question ryanair's priorities viz a viz safety. but ryanair still retains the caa licences. so that's alright then.