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Old 11th Aug 2020, 20:21
  #1882 (permalink)  
OzzyOzBorn
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: SYD
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If FR don't allow some sort of changeability in tickets, there would be far fewer new bookings being made at the moment. Bookings made before 10 June are already paid - if they relax the terms now, then lots of people will defer their flights for summer 2020 to something in 2021 instead, leaving seats in S20 no longer generating revenue. Once an airline has your money, they will only relax the terms if they can't deliver their side of the contract. If they haven't got your money yet, then it is in the airline's interest to find the way to squeeze maximum revenue out of you - if that means relaxing the terms, then so be it

May not be nice, but I imagine right now FR are managing, to some extent around cashflow
Yes, I fully appreciate the need for travel providers to protect themselves from straightforward "disinclination to travel". The penalty for that reasonably falls to the customer. But we need to differentiate between that group and those who are forced to stay away by order of the government in the jurisdiction they're booked to visit.

Right now, if you arrive at an airport in Eire with the intention of staying overnight, you will be ordered to shut yourself away in a hotel room for 14 days of self-isolation whilst arranging to have food and supplies delivered to yourself all at your own expense. Now that isn't my idea of a holiday, and I don't believe that even Mr and Mrs O' Leary would be tempted to travel on those terms. It is quite different from someone who decides they just don't fancy a trip away right now when their booked destination is fully-open for business.

Note that I'm not even talking about cancellation and refund. I'm calling for a waiver of the rip-off change-fee which prevents the customer from saving their trip by switching to replacement dates after the quarantine rule is lifted. The airline still keeps both the original fare paid and the difference between that and the new fare under these circumstances. So the pain is shared around, and customer goodwill is preserved. That seems a reasonable compromise to me. How can a £90 change fee on top of this be justified?

In the absence of that compromise, I for one cannot trust Ryanair with any new advanced bookings. And that will be my advice to family and friends too. This also has implications for the company's bottom line.
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