View Full Version : Ryanair Shut next Saturday
Brain to Automatic
13th May 2012, 14:20
In a very un Ryanair move FR are closing their website to bookings for 24 hours next week. Rumour has it that their system is close to collapse. I wonder if they're about to launch some new wizz bang "No agents allowed" website
Tableview
13th May 2012, 16:20
I seem to recall they did this a couple of years ago for a systems upgrade. Much as I dislike some of Ryanair's business practices, there is probably nothing sinister to be read into this.
A2QFI
13th May 2012, 16:30
18/19 May - Ryanair.com 24 Hour Closure
The Cheap Flights - Book cheap flights to Europe with Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.com) website will be closed for upgrade maintenance at the below times between Fri. 18 May and Sun. 20 May. Passengers must ensure that they have booked tickets, checked in online and printed their boarding passes etc. prior to the below times.
1. Online Check-in - Not available from 16:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 12:00 hrs. Sun. 20 May
2. Bookings cannot be made on Ryanair.com from 22:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 22:00hrs Sat. 19 May
3. Flight Changes cannot be made from 22:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 22:00hrs Sat. 19 May
Ryanair wishes to apologise to all passengers who may be affected by our website closure which is unavoidable in order to upgrade the Cheap Flights - Book cheap flights to Europe with Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.com) website.
Tableview
13th May 2012, 16:37
I have to say though that if they charge people extra because they couldn't do on-line checkin during those times, then that is blatantly dishonest and unfair.
jabird
14th May 2012, 01:44
I have to say though that if they charge people extra because they couldn't do on-line checkin during those times, then that is blatantly dishonest and unfair.
I would presume people who have booked flights leaving during this period will have been sent an email advising them of the changes.
However, I for one do not tend to check email very often when I'm on the move, and my mobile brick only has limited texting functions.
I would certainly be very miffed to go into an internet cafe on the morning of my flight home to be greeted by this message. However, somewhere deep in Ryanair's xx pages of smallprint, there is probably a clause which says "we are not liable for extra charges in the event of non-functioning of our website, howsoever caused".
Anyone care to dig them out?
MaximumPete
14th May 2012, 06:36
Could be the advertising standards folk have rattled their cage and they've got to make some essential changes?
RevMan2
14th May 2012, 10:42
there is probably a clause which says "we are not liable for extra charges in the event of non-functioning of our website, howsoever caused".
Anyone care to dig them out?
Waste of time - it's either in there (probability) or they'll just ignore you if you complain (certainty)
anotherglassofwine
14th May 2012, 12:57
Why the suspicion?
Any high volume websites need to go down for regular Maintenance, software/hardware upgrades etc
Regulatory changes and/or advertising changes can be done on the fly (excuse me) - most likely backend infrastructure upgrades or the likes .
No worries!
Gulfstreamaviator
14th May 2012, 13:35
My bank takes about 20 mins to change the front end of their web site.
They run a beta sytem on line on a private web site (test trainer).
If I am updating my front end ( thanks for the giggle), then I am down for no more than 1hr....
If I have a need to travel over the weekend in question, i can not book a ticket, do I just turn up and check in with my Photoshoped boarding card....
Nigerian branch office of RYNAir will make a fortune on excess charges......
Any high volume websites need to go down for regular Maintenance, software/hardware upgrades etc
Not at all, it is prefectly possible, and regularly done, to handle these changes seamlessly. Of course, if Ryanair have gone out to the lowest bidder on IT system management, as with everything else, they have probably never heard of such advanced techniques.
Alanwsg
14th May 2012, 19:39
Look's like no amnesty and it will cost £60 for each boarding pass you fail to get printed in advance ....
Ryanair flyers face £60 fees thanks to web shutdown (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2012/05/ryanair-to-shut-website-this-weekend-but-still-charge-60-for-not-checking-in-online)
jabird
15th May 2012, 01:07
Passengers flying on Sunday should also consider printing boarding passes before 4pm on Friday, in case work on Ryanair's website overruns. You can check in now for flights this weekend.
That is piss-poor, but then again we all know the Ryanair website is going down, we're all talking about it and as always Ryanair is loving the free publicity.
I think there's a secondary problem here which could be much worse for anyone caught out:
People going out on holiday and then back a week later might not be likely to change their travel plans, but other travellers might want to make changes. Even though changes incur hefty fees, they can still be done up until the day of travel. By getting people to check-in online earlier, they are then voiding any opportunity to change travel plans at the last minute.
Jabird. Is that correct? I've never used Cryanair, but with squeezy you can make changes even after you have printed your boarding card. I know because my wife has done it a couple of times.
The LCC 'check-in' model isn't the same as check-in for network airlines. Once you've printed a LCC boarding card I don't think your status changes in their system. You can even go back and print your boarding card more than once. With network carriers, your status does change. To then make a booking change you need to be 'unloaded' first.
Perhaps Cryanair follows the network model, but I can't see why they would as their DCS is quite basic.
RevMan2
15th May 2012, 09:23
Ryanair is hosted on Accenture's Navitaire platform which appears to have a history of suspending services when upgrading hardware or software.
Same happened for 3 days in 2008, for example.
If only the UK CAA, for flights from the UK, or the IAA, for the whole Ryanair opoeration, were to do their jobs properly, they would be down like a ton of bricks on any regulated (as all AOC holders are) commercial carrier who tried to change their conditions retrospectively, or impose unfair conditions, after booking which lead to substantial extra costs like this.
davidjohnson6
15th May 2012, 11:31
Can only suggest that the IAA / CAA are afraid of being sued by Ryanair (or for that matter any other large aviation company) in a European court for acting outside their statutory authority and thus act only where they are absolutely certain that the law permits them to act.
ChicoG
15th May 2012, 12:35
Bleedin' Windows Updates. They almost always need a reboot.
:ugh:
anotherglassofwine
17th May 2012, 15:52
Not at all, it is prefectly possible, and regularly done, to handle these changes seamlessly. Of course, if Ryanair have gone out to the lowest bidder on IT system management, as with everything else, they have probably never heard of such advanced techniques.
I would guess these changes are significant - although possibly not visible to the end user ..
seamlessly - hmm, I guess you have never been involved in a weekend of "routine" maintenance on a high volume/transaction website.
I would guess this is a database update of some kind, or possibly server patching.
Once you are dealing with database or schema updates, more then likely you will have to run some database script updates. Depending on the size of your dataset (possibly petabytes), this can take hours...
Furthermore once this is done, before going live you're going to want to make some time for a QA pass ...
Unfortunately, even in the slickest outfits - it's hard to get a dataset in test representing what you will see in production ..
I'm sure MOL isn't too pleased with the amount of bookings he will miss out on, so one can only assume that it is more then a routine update.
seamlessly - hmm, I guess you have never been involved in a weekend of "routine" maintenance on a high volume/transaction website.
It's how I've spent much of my professional life.
How do you think just about every other airline reservation/check-in system manages without this pre-planned disruption ?
anotherglassofwine
17th May 2012, 16:11
It's how I've spent much of my professional life.
My apologies - we have faced the same challenges so!
How do you think just about every other airline reservation/check-in system manages without this pre-planned disruption ?
They don't - register with pingdom and check out the stats - Startling.
Airline sites crash more than average (Which is worst?) | Technically Incorrect - CNET News (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10225777-71.html)
Found a direct link the report
http://www.pingdom.com/_img/press/pingdom_20090423_report_airline_websites_downtime.pdf
anotherglassofwine
18th May 2012, 09:21
Not my area of expertise but I'll hazard a guess: They properly fund theirs and take the advice of industry experts?
Please take time to read the report I linked to earlier - probably not best to guess if it is not your area of expertise. The system Ryanair use is shared by many airlines and ticket reservation systems.
As can be seen in the report, Ryanair do better than most of the legacy and full fare carriers in terms of website uptime.
There are plenty of opportunities to bash Ryanair - but this is not one :ugh:
Tableview
18th May 2012, 09:35
The system Ryanair use is shared by many airlines and ticket reservation systems. They use Navitaire, which is pretty robust and used by about 70 airlines.
Navitaire - Growth, Innovation, Results. Delivered. (http://www.navitaire.com/company/customers_all.asp)
davidjohnson6
18th May 2012, 14:56
anotherglass - very interesting report but the methodology seems to measure whether the web server is live or dead rather than capacity to make a booking. Thus if the homepage can be served to someone on a PC at home it counts as uptime.
Ryanair seems to be pretty good at keeping some sort of website going at all times. The capacity to make, view and amend bookings requires greater system integration and reliability skills along with more money being spent. The capacity to access the booking engine via the website is where reliability falls down badly with Ryanair
anotherglassofwine
18th May 2012, 16:08
very interesting report but the methodology seems to measure whether the web server is live or dead rather than capacity to make a booking
Hi David,
I think the website name might be slightly misleading. The service does not simply ping an ip address and see that they get a response. The http service can validate objects and text on screen to ensure that they can click links and child pages can be opened. Obviously any sort of "down for maintenance" splash page would result in the test getting a false positive.
Nevertheless, I agree with you that the report doesn't go into enough detail on the specifics of the tests carried out.
davidjohnson6
14th Jun 2012, 08:43
Ever since the website upgrade the Timetables section on the website has been broken. Normally this might get fixed quickly by a large company but we're dealing with Ryanair here. Anyone know a way of contacting someone in the IT dept directly to encourage them on this ? Contacting the call centere would just be a complete waste of time