MSE News: Ryanair 'sticks two fingers up at passengers' with new card fees

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Thank the airport not the airline for that, tobiascurious.

Careful Martin, you risk giving them the sort of publicity they no longer deserve on that score - no they are not dirt cheap anymore especially for those travelling on summer holidays with the family who cannot avoid booking hold bags.

You are absolutely correct in describing Ryanair as having stuck two fingers up at the regulator and that is what worries me most. What other regulations do they routinely break?

Their aircraft are not getting younger anymore. Their aircraft are some of the most hard-worked on the planet. Old before their years. Their aircraft are now maintained in-house. Sit near the front and listen to the rattles and shudders from the freewheeling nosewheel as the aircraft rotates. We didn't notice that when they were new. Airlines like this are crying out for brake and wheel mechanics. They get a beating. Their aircrews and cabin crews are also very hard-worked.

I was on one flight recently where we had taxied for take-off but the lead cabin-crew who was a Cockney lad clearly was having accounting trouble. His mind wasn't on preparing for take off at all. This was at a small European airport with very little traffic. There was no other traffic. We reached the double-line marking the hold point before entering the active runway and the aircraft came to an obviously abrupt halt. It then dawned on the lead cabin crew that he had given no ready signal to the flightdeck. "Are they waiting for me?" he said out loud still standing and as he hastened to give the necessary signal and punch in the code on the cockpit door. He was not unusual in being distracted right up until the point of entering the active runway, except this lad had (rightly) given no ready signal. Many of his peers give the signal before they are actually ready, then cutting it very fine that all the trolleys can be safely locked down even though they are still checking stock, and that they themselves need to finish and get strapped in, and also having left it presumably to the three others to ensure that passengers were ready and strapped in and loose objects were stowed.

In this case the check item on the flightdeck crew's checklist worked to the extent that the departure didn't proceed "ready or not" as many risk doing, but this particular departure was always going to be an unusually short take off run because the runway was one third unserviceable undergoing maintenance. Within 10 seconds of crossing the line we were under full power aimed at a heap of heavy construction machinery two thirds down the normal runway. Evidently still room enough, but concentrates the mind a bit.

At the point the aircraft crosses that holding point line at this airport, if anything went wrong on takeoff then within about 35 seconds from crossing the line then the cabin crew could already have been dealing with a completed emergency stop and an emergency evacuation because in 35 seconds the plane would either be flying or it would need to have stopped dead before it ploughed into that heap of heavy construction vehicles. Would that come as a manageable surprise to a cabin crew who was still thinking about what happened to two unaccounted bundles of scratchcards? "Oh oh ... door still closed ... slides not down ... are they waiting for me? ... "Welcome to yet another ontime Ryanair flight ... oh oh ... wrong button ... brace brace .... no not that one ... we've stopped ... " ... am I being unfair to these boys and girls? Someone is, that's for sure.

Onboard sales accounts were still playing on this fellow's mind before landing too. I heard him apologise to his colleague for being "a bit stressed out" about it as he strapped himself in. He was musing whether he'd get another flight as supervisor.

Pushing cabin crew to account on every flight for every sandwich, Mars Bar, train ticket and scratchcard is not conducive to safe cabin crew behaviour prior to take off and landing. Where is the regulation to control this? Are there mystery passengers who see and report and prosecute the things I sometimes see?


I no longer like the way this airline is being led. O'Leary doesn't make me smile anymore. 1p flights are a thing of the dim distant past. Flights are not dirt cheap. The airline has elbowed its way into a monopoly position on so many of its routes and there is no real alternative via other routes and trains or buses.

Ryanair could be honest and be a good citizen and still put up fares, but no, it wishes to flout authority - this latest move is total spivvish behaviour of the type you expect after a knock on your door to hike the price of your new cheap tarmac drive before it is finished. Where the hell do they develop that kind of business ethic?

This latest news is indicative that Ryanair may no longer have any senior manager within their outfit who can be trusted to respect rules.

Don't rely on the pilots to keep the faith - I am sure they still do and I would have to vote with my feet and turn my life upside down if I thought they didn't, but it is not good that they may be the last line of reason with this outfit, and we don't really know how long many of those good guys will put up with this company either, do we?