Ryanair – Europe’s Worst Airline?

Ryanair bills itself as the "Low Fares Airline" Well, having just returned from Italy on one of their budget flights, I think it is high time a new epithet was introduced. Ryanair, the "You Get What You Pay For Airline And Sometimes Not Even That"

Yes, yes, I know everyone says ‘But it’s so cheap, isn't it?’ and if the truth be told, who wouldn't like to travel to exotic, far away destinations for no more than the loose change that rattles around in your car's ashtray. We all would, of course. But be prepared – with Ryanair you will pay far more than the headline price for your ticket and your good nature (or even your will to live) may be severely tested.

And even if you do not live in Europe and have never encountered Ryanair, in today’s cut-price, no-frills, cattle-class, put-me-in-a-box-and-throw-me-in-the-hold world of airline travel you will no doubt have your own home-grown budget airlines capable of delivering equally infuriating levels of service that should enable Ryanair to sound depressingly familiar to you.

To travel to Italy, have a good time hiking on the Ligurian coast and return to England unscathed. Simple.

Naturally, I would have to fly there and the nearest airport to my destination was Pisa’s grandly named Galileo Galilei airport.

I booted my computer and entered a search for "cheap flights London Pisa" Many promising results were returned; Pisa from £29.99!!! Flights to Europe £15!!! etc, etc. In other words, all the usual promises that will remain unfulfilled unless you wish to fly at an inconvenient time of day to an airport that no one has ever heard of on dates that suit only the airline’s agenda.

Undaunted, I clicked on the Ryanair link. And there my ordeal began.

Ryanair’s website is practical, easy to use and, if you happen to be colour blind, well presented. You simply enter your leaving/destination airports and dates, click ‘book now’ and a selection of flights appear. Brilliant. I had selected London to Pisa and was pleased to find flights at reasonable times on my required dates as follows :

Going Out : £26.99 Returning : £39.99

Fantastic. Only £66.98 for a return flight to Pisa. (Why do businesses always seem to insist on using this ridiculous 99 pence/cents ploy in their pricing?)

So, not the cheapest flight ever but pretty damned good! But wait… What’s this? At the bottom of the page : Total £136.04

What the *!@#... That sounds suspiciously like more than twice as much as the ticket prices displayed! What’s going on?

The answer is, of course, the dastardly use of additional fees. And it gets worse.

Continuing through the booking process I am harangued with offers encouraging me to accept such things as travel insurance, new hand luggage, car hire, etc. This is the first clue that you have become a sales mark, a fact that Ryanair will not let you forget during your journey with them. Anyway, more on this later - back to the price. By the time I have completed the entire transaction the cost has risen again and I am required to pay £188.04 What!!! That’s not cheap! As far as I’m concerned that has definitely strayed into the unwelcome category of ‘reasonable’. But what could I do?

If I go to another airline I know what will happen. I will be forced to endure a similar process and end up with a similar price. Such is the nature of market forces, the lowest common denominator, and the Darwinian laws of bad customer service. Instead, I decided to look closer at the ‘additional fees’.

All these are paid per person per flight so, for example; A return flight requires 2 ‘admin fees’ for your credit card payment, even though you use it only once. Similarly, if you are booking return flights for 4 people, you will be charged 8 'admin fees' for using your card. The fee is £6, so you would be charged £48 for paying by credit card. I'm not joking - it would be too ridiculous to make this up. Naturally, there is no other way to pay.

To simplify matters I will list the cost of items for outbound and return flights as a single charge.

This is what I was charged for :

There were other extras like ‘priority boarding’ (£8), sports items (skis are £80), that I didn’t need and declined. The moral is : Nothing is included. Your wallet will be abused at every opportunity.

Interestingly, if you accept my ticket price is £66.98, as Ryanair claim, then it is more expensive for skis to travel than a person!

Ha! You have to check in, so you can’t avoid this, and you will also be required to print your own boarding card. But wait. Can’t I just check-in at the airport in the time-honoured tradition? Yes, of course you can. But to do that there will unfortunately be a charge of £40, thereby virtually forcing the on-line option. By the way, treat your boarding card printout like a £40 banknote. Because if you lose it and Ryanair has to print you another one at their desk, that is how much they will fine you.

Ryanair claims it had to pay about £100million last year in compensation to passengers for cancelled/delayed flights that were no fault of its own (bad weather, etc) due to a pesky European regulation (EU261) that requires it to provide a minimum level of customer care, regardless of the weather. Reluctantly, they have announced that they will need to cover this cost with an extra charge on your bill. Interestingly, Ryanair also boasts that it is Europe’s second largest carrier – 72 million passengers in 2010. So, let me think, £2 each. That’s about £144million. Hmmmm. It looks like Ryanair has managed to boost its profits at a stroke by about £44million and casually pass the blame onto European regulators. Or am I being too cynical?

Not much can be done – death and taxes being life’s only certainties – we have to pay, simple as that. Grrrrrr.

You can take a single item of hand luggage (of limited size, up to 10Kg) for free.

Anything bought in the airport or other items, like ladies’ clutch bags, must fit inside the hand luggage otherwise you will be fined at the boarding gate.

For baggage in the hold there is extra cost – 15Kg bag for £40, 20Kg for £60 and so forth.

Bags are bad for business. Baggage handlers expect wages and heavy aircraft use more fuel. So, if you are going to insist on inconveniencing Ryanair with bags and weighing down their aircraft with them, then they will insist that you pay accordingly. Sadly my needs were greater than 10Kg so I had to pay. (Bah!)

And do not over-pack your bag! You will be penalised a staggering £20 per kilo for overweight luggage when you go to drop off your bags. It will be cheaper to open your luggage at the desk and throw away some of your less expensive belongings. Tip – there are no rules preventing you from wearing numerous shirts, a couple of coats and 2 pairs of trousers, and anything in your pockets does not count as luggage.

This is nothing short of laughable. Ryanair are insulting its passengers by trying to claim that this is a legitimate cost and not simply a way of boosting revenue while maintaining boasts of low prices.

I am not the only one who is unhappy with Ryanair’s pricing policy. They have been the subject of much press criticism and have been described by the consumer magazine “Holiday Which?” as being the "worst offender" in the industry for charging for extras.

Personally speaking, all these add-ons and rules of engagement have no other effect than to put me in a mood of teeth-grinding bad temper. As I said previously, the final price of £188 was to me a reasonable charge. But don’t shout “FLIGHTS FOR £15” at me in your ads and then craftily sneak in lots of extra charges. Tell me up front. I will understand you are a business and must make money so there is no need to treat me like a half-wit. Just put everything in one lump and tell me the price (ok, maybe the bags could legitimately be listed as an extra.)

If Ryanair continues its strategy of sneaking in charges then they might as well go the whole hog and charge us nothing at all for tickets. For example :

Think of the advertising; Large banners could declare “*ALL FLIGHTS TO ANYWHERE COMPLETELY FREE FOREVER!”

And in very small print at the bottom (*excluding charges for airline profits and operating costs.)

Hell, they could even pay us to fly with them!

“WE GIVE YOU £5 FOR THE PLEASURE OF TAKING YOU SOMEWHERE!”

Once booked there are no refunds if for any reason you cannot travel. Once they have your money it will not be coming back your way. The only thing you can apply for is the return of government taxes but Ryanair have a neat trick of adding a £17 admin fee (£34 for return flights) to such applications and once they have removed this and the airport fee from the Tax/fee charge there is nothing to give you back. And Ryanair had the cheek to accuse the British government of robbing its customers when the tax was increased in 2006. Nice one.

On arriving at the airport the on-line check-in proves to be fairly pointless, aside from saving Ryanair the cost of issuing boarding passes. I still had to get in the queues for passport/visa check and to drop my bag.

After that I went sheep-like through security at glacial speed with thousands of fellow sufferers (Can’t blame Ryanair for this, unfortunately.) Then wasted my time looking at overpriced goods boasting tax-free savings whose additional profit mark-ups were higher than any tax removed. You need to be flying outside the EU to get the real deals. Nothing of any note happened until my flight was called.

Speedy boarders (those who had paid an extra £4) got to board first. And everyone else got in the queue. Of course, there is no need to queue. You can sit and wait until everyone has gone and get on last. But there is a downside. Ryanair does not allocate seats. If you get on last then you will find the only seats left are single and usually the centre seat of 3, so if you are travelling with friends/family and want to sit together then it is wise to be in the queue. Also, because Ryanair is forcing everyone to use maximum hand luggage to avoid draconian hold baggage charges then the last boarders will struggle to find room in the overhead lockers and may end up with their bag under their feet. Consequently, most stand in the queue.

On my flight, after 5 minutes of standing in a very crowded and hot departure lounge, the expected boarding had not begun. People, already worn down by check-in queues and security screening stood with bovine patience, wondering what the delay was when an announcement was made by the Ryanair staff. “Any remaining passengers who would like to purchase speedy boarding can do so now for £5”

People exchanged glances. Many were aware of what had just happened. We had been forced to stand in an uncomfortable, overcrowded, unmoving line for 5 minutes in order to increase the chance of selling last minute speedy boarding passes. Remember my comment about being a sales mark? I ground my teeth. I could hear others doing the same. A minute passed and nobody moved. With no takers, the staff opened the gate and began boarding.

There are no classes on Ryanair. In the spirit of egalitarianism everyone gets the same levels of discomfort. This starts with the seats.

Ryanair have removed the reclining function of all their seating. They discovered that people trying to relax use the mechanism and thoughtlessly wear it out. Subsequently, breakage occurs and the seats are costlier to replace than the non-reclining type.

There are no headrest covers. They would incur extravagant cleaning costs. Instead headrests come in easy wipe plastic.

The magazine pocket on the back of the chair in front of you has been removed. Again, they are prone to breakage but more importantly, seats without pockets decrease cleaning costs.

In a fit of rebellion I threw as much trash as I could under my seat in a one-man attempt to drive cleaning costs back up.

Rumours are currently circulating that Ryanair are looking at installing very narrow profile seats in some aircraft to allow more bodies on the plane (see picture.) It seems like a spoof, but such is Ryanair's reputation, you never know. Oooh! My back's starting to hurt just looking at them!

The window blinds are still there. Ryanair wanted to remove them to save cost when they ordered aircraft from the manufacturer but they were foiled by a regulation requiring them to be fitted.

Ryanair famously discussed charging for using the toilets (£1) but so far this has not been implemented. Do not be surprised if they find a way around the impracticalities of the policy and introduce it in the future, believe me – the last thing on the company’s mind is your comfort.

During your flight you will be assaulted with messages from the PA system. Not the usual “Good afternoon, this is your captain… etc” but a more strident array of adverts for products on sale. You are a captive audience and Ryanair is determined to take full advantage. They will sell anything they can - drinks, food, perfumes, gifts, smokeless cigarettes that you can smoke on board and most annoyingly of all, bloody lottery scratch-cards! All of it will be loudly announced and all of it will be overpriced. If you can possibly resist – don’t buy any of it. You are not prevented from putting a sandwich and a drink in your hand-luggage. Remember to acquire the drink after the security check (Thanks again, terrorists.)

When you touch down a loud grating fanfare will blast from the speakers declaring “Another on-time flight from Ryanair.” Even more annoyingly, on my return journey this trumpeting was still played even though we landed 10 minutes late. No doubt some marketing wizard was determined that reality should not get in the way of a good jingle.

As you taxi to the terminal you are assailed by a final burst of announcements encouraging you to use Ryanair’s car hire partners. Then, mercifully, you can disembark and hurry through to arrivals with blessed relief, trying not to think about the return journey.

Old fashioned business staples like “Take care of the customer and the customer will take care of you” do not apply with Ryanair. Their philosophy is more dynamic, more 21st century, it is more akin to : “You can treat the customer as badly as you like because their thirst for money saving will always outweigh their dissatisfaction with our service.” Well, no more - for me at least!

I have travelled on other low cost airlines and to be honest, none are brilliant when it comes to customer service, but after flying with Ryanair (at least 10 times over the years) I have witnessed their service slowly degrade until it has come to the point where I can safely say that Ryanair is now the worst airline I have ever travelled with and, despite all their tedious boasting, I have NEVER managed to get a truly ‘cheap flight’ from them. In fact, I have now decided to choose my future travels on a basis of getting there without them.

This hub is my parting shot at Ryanair. Our paths shall not cross again. And, if not actual revenge (that would require strangling Ryanair's CEO) writing it has at least made me feel a tiny bit better.

This article is not intended to criticise the ordinary employees of Ryanair, who are only doing as their contemptible bosses instruct. In some way I actually feel a degree of sympathy for them, as they are the ones who actually have to deal with angry customers, whom often have only been aggravated as a direct result of Ryanair’s corporate policy rather than any error on the staff's part.