Ryanair Rant - I Hates Em

[Stephen Chambers]

With all these "no frills" airlines, you get what you pay for - the bare minimum. Customer service is presumably considered a "frill".

Likewise courtesy, and any command of the English language...

[tblay]

I managed to purchase a return flight from Stansted to Shannon for the Ennis Trad Festival for the total sum of £2.42 including debit card fee. Even taking into account the poor customer services this must be considered a "bargain".

[Alan Day]

I had to book a Flight and Hotel for a job we were doing in Munich. After about twenty tries I finally managed to book the flight and then concentrated on the Hotel. The Holiday Inn Central Munich. I was diverted to a central booking point in the UK and I explained exactly what the requirement which was one night in The Holiday Inn- Central Munich. After a long wait the young lady came back to me and said she was sorry, but no Holiday Inn existed in the UK under Munich.

Al

[Stephen Chambers]

I managed to purchase a return flight from Stansted to Shannon for the Ennis Trad Festival for the total sum of £2.42 including debit card fee. Even taking into account the poor customer services this must be considered a "bargain".

So what happened to the "Taxes/Fees" there???

[tblay]

I managed to purchase a return flight from Stansted to Shannon for the Ennis Trad Festival for the total sum of £2.42 including debit card fee. Even taking into account the poor customer services this must be considered a "bargain".

So what happened to the "Taxes/Fees" there???

 

There was a special price of 1p each way including taxes/fees.

[wntrmute]

On you-tube there's a video showing the Ryanair high-mucky-muck discussing a new business class 'package.'

 

It does look interesting.

[Stephen Chambers]

There was a special price of 1p each way including taxes/fees.

Well when I looked it was quoting nothing (£0.00) for the journey, but £9.99 Taxes/Fees each way, so £19.98 + handling £2.40 = £22.38.

 

So you got it "for less than nothing"!

[David Levine]

The wheelchair charge is 50¢ per person.

I'm perfectly willing to pay that to subsidize somebody's wheelchair.

I'm sure most of us feel that way.

And I certainly don't mind forgoing airplane food for a cheaper price.

Edited June 26, 2008 by cocusflute

[hjcjones]

I think what really irritates people about the budget airlines is all the hassle. You can never find a flight at the advertised price, when you do find a reasonable price they then load lots of extras on to it, and going through their website or phone booking procedure is invariably a nightmare. When you come to fly, they're often unreliable and their customer service is sometimes non-existent. But they are a bargain. The attitude of the boss of Ryanair to complaints is that "you've got the flight for bugger-all so stop whining". You can see his point.

 

If you want service, go to one of the mainstream airlines. You'll pay a lot more, and chances are it will still be rubbish. You've got to pay a hell of a lot more for an upper-class ticket before you see a difference, and even then there's no guarantee - ask Naomi Campbell

 

I'll continue to go for the cheapest flight I can get, within reason, but I'll keep my expectations accordingly low.

[Stephen Chambers]

I'll continue to go for the cheapest flight I can get, within reason, but I'll keep my expectations accordingly low...

...and expect to land at some little provincial airport, many miles from where I'm nominally supposed to be going.

 

Actually, I had to book a flight to Manchester this week, for a reunion dinner with a bunch of fellow old-students on Saturday night, but Ryanair only fly there from Shannon on the other six days of the week , so I'm going to have to drive up to Dublin to fly with Aer Lingus (who are none-too popular with people in Clare these days - since moving "our" profit-making slots to Belfast). But at least I get to choose to fly at a reasonable time of day that way.

 

Mind you, I got a great hotel deal off the Ryanair website, even if I'm not travelling with them.

[Mark Davies]

Bradfield Traditional Music Weekend 2008

Could I correct the impression that is being given that I am organising a"Concertina Festical".The BTMW features some of the finest traditional singers and instrumentalists from the UK,Ireland and the USA.Some are concertina players but the majority of instrumentalists are not.We will have English music sessions throughout the weekend in The Royal Hotel,Dungworth an Irish music sessions in The Plough,Low Bradfield and singing in the Club Room of The Old Horns,High Bradfield.As I have previously indicated there will be some great concertina players attending and we will have some fascinating talks on the history and manufacturing and repair of concertinas.

[tombilly]

The thing that I find most surprising about the Ryanair system is the 'credit card' handling charge. I think it's currently about Euro 8, not per payment transaction but per passenger booked. My family of six were charged an additional Euro 48 recently for the pleasure of paying them by VISA!

The thing is, I have a credit card merchant facility for business purposes. When I signed up, about ten years ago, I signed a declaration that I would sell goods by credit card for the same as the cash price. Now over the intervening years, this seems to have been eroded and perhaps reasonably as retailers pay %'s on each and every card transaction to the credit card companies and there are some fixed costs.

So, we often see a 'credit card booking or handling fee' now to cover the extra costs of accepting payment by credit card. But that should only apply per transaction and when I pay Ryanair, they process the payment in one go, not as six separate payments. Dishonesty, thievery .. that's what I'd call it.

The only positive thing to be said for dreary O'Leary who runs Ryanair is that he lives in Ireland and presumably pays his taxes here, unlike most of his highflying business schmucks who pretend to be Irish but live as tax exiles and fly in and out in private planes and helicopters each day... that was a good rant!!!!!!!

[Henrik Müller]

...Though if you can persuade some Swedes or Norsemen to build you a longboat, you can stop over in Iceland and Greenland and make it to Nova Scotia handily enough.

Already done. This photo is from Dublin, yesterday:

 

 

(Source: the "www-dot-havhingsten-dot-dk" web site (in English and Danish)).

 

"Havhingsten af Glendalough" ("The Sea Stallion of Glendalough") is a scientific project that started last year when the Sea Stallion sailed to Dublin, where it has spent the winter in the National Museum - it left Dublin yesterday to head back to Denmark and Roskilde, its home town.

 

Who knows - it might be for hire later on?

 

/Henrik

[Ivan Viehoff]

59.84 Euros Tax and Fees

11.98 Insurance/Wheelchair/Aviation

Handling Fee 8.00 EUR

Handling Fee 8.00 EUR

Total Payment Amount

Including handling fee

140.26 EUR

Where Ryanair lead the way, others follow. Before we should protest too loudly about Ryanair's add-ons, a survey conducted a couple of years ago by a consumer organisation concluded that British Airways had the largest add-ons. I don't know if that is still true, but the charge for a second piece of hold baggage on BA is obscene. And Ryanair aren't the only supplier to use inertia selling of travel insurance, Easyjet do that too.

[geoffwright]

I Hates Em

I rather like Em, its F#m I have fun with.

[david_boveri]

i have a question--how long does it take to drive from one side of the country to the other? in america, 6 hours of driving is the least amount of time you would forgo to consider flying. the only reason i would fly instead for 6 hours (or 9), which i have, is because i dont have a car and no one could drive me. i go to ohio/kentucky every year for noel hill's camp, which is about 6 hours away. i flew to milwaukee (i live near chicago), to meet my family at irish fest one year. personally, unless you can get the plane ticket for less than the cost of gas (and you have a car), and the ride is less than 7 or 8 hours, i dont know why you would fly.

 

in america, many people think 24 hours is not too far to drive. i had a boss once that would drive from chicago to mexico non stop, no sleep, rather than fly.

 

although, if i could get a trip for 2 pounds, maybe i'd fly to work every day! who cares if its 100 pounds in fees...

[Stephen Chambers]

i have a question--how long does it take to drive from one side of the country to the other?

David,

 

Unless they were travelling somewhere for only a day, on business, most people here would travel by car, bus or train within their own countries, but the journeys under discussion are international ones that involve flying over at least one sea, maybe two.

[Chris Timson]

"Havhingsten af Glendalough" ("The Sea Stallion of Glendalough") is a scientific project that started last year when the Sea Stallion sailed to Dublin, where it has spent the winter in the National Museum - it left Dublin yesterday to head back to Denmark and Roskilde, its home town.

With, by the look of things, an awful lot of passengers trying to avoid travelling with Ryanair.

 

We saw it being built in Roskilde. Nice to see it floated OK.

 

Chris