GEOGRAPHY Whatever it was the Jesuits taught the young O'Leary during his time at Clongowes, geography doesn't seem to have been on the curriculum. Ryanair's Frankfurt-Hahn hub is virtually in Luxembourg, while Paris-Beauvais is closer to the northern French city of Amiens than it is to the French capital.
However, it was Ryanair advertising flights to "Copenhagen" a few years back that really took the Mickey, if you'll pardon the pun. On closer examination it emerged that the flights were not to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, but to Malmo in Sweden.
What ever anyone thinks about the use of Regional bases, no one can in deed accuse them of not being open and upfront about where they fly. If you take the time to look at the destinations section and actually click on the destination, it tells you very very plainly where the airport is located. Most people are too lazy to do this and blame the airline for keeping them in the dark. By the way, Malmo airport is less than 30mins on the train from Cophenhagen. Within 10minutes of leaving Malmo, you ACTUALLU STOP AT COPHENHAGEN INTL AIRPORT!!! Therefore its only 10minutes further away from Cophenhagen than Cophenhagen airport is!!!! I fly all the time to Malmo for cophenhagen, Its €51 return including tax and luggage, vs average of €400+ return with SAS. And i still have to pay for Tea on SAS!!!
NO DIVIDENDS With its growth rapidly slowing, O'Leary's refusal to pay a dividend is now starting to hurt the share price. While the airline almost quadrupled passenger numbers to 35 million over the past five years, it is forecasting that passenger numbers will double to just under 70 million by 2011.
Remember percent is based on the new figure, and 1% is relative. 35 million over 5 years......great. but, simple maths will tell you, increaseing up to 70million between now and 2011 is still another 35 million passengers, over 5 years (2011-2006!) so its the same!!! Its the old saying...Theres Lies, Utter Lies, then theres Statistics. This is merely illustrated in this way by the media to try and make it look like things arent great.
DUBLIN AIRPORT By pursuing a pointless vendetta against Aer Rianta over its plans to expand Dublin Airport and refusing to start any new routes out of Dublin for several years, O'Leary allowed Aer Lingus to open a slew of new routes.
Having a free run at these new European routes was one of the key reasons Willie Walsh was able to bring Aer Lingus back from the dead. With Aer Lingus rapidly evolving into a sort of Ryanair-lite, O'Leary had no option but to eat humble pie and start operating new routes out of Dublin.
NO one "allowed" Aer Lingus to open new routes! They were just to lazy, and Wilie Walsh just knew that expansion to new markets was the only way to success. Didnt matter of FR were battling them out or not. EI would always get the pic of the pax anyways, as they fly to CDG, FRA, BCN etc instead of outlying airports.
CUSTOMER RELATIONS While O'Leary might view customer relations as an expensive irrelevance, treating the paying public in such a cavalier manner could yet come back to haunt Ryanair. O'Leary's handling of Jane O'Keeffe, Ryanair's millionth passenger, who was awarded €67,500 by the High Court in 2002 after the airline reneged on a prize of free travel for life, was merely the most notorious such incident.
YEs, i agree, this isnt good image, but personally speaking, ive never had any trouble with FR. To coin a popular phrase - They do exactly what they say on the tin. When i have had trouble, they have rectified straight away and fulfilled all contractual obligations without haste. Interestly, i had to change a flight the other day. FR charged €30 + fare difference. Whenever i change with EI, its €50 + fare difference!
With relations between Ryanair and the EU Commission now downright poisonous, what are the odds on enhanced consumer protection for passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled?
Is someone implying that a law would be brought out only governing ryanair?!
POLISH U-TURN In 2004 O'Leary sneeringly said: "Who wants to go to Gdansk? There ain't a lot there after you've seen the shipyard wall." A year later Ryanair announced that it was after all flying to the Polish port - and now flies from Gdansk to Stansted, Frankfurt Hahn and Stockholm.
Yes, but what the Independent are forgetting to report here, is that MOL came out and held his hands up when the first route was announced, saying that he got it wrong, and thats were the demand lies. First rule of business. go to where the money lies.
After the wheelchairs experience, you would have thought that Ryanair would tread carefully in its dealings with the disabled. Not a bit of it. Last September it chucked nine blind and visually impaired people along with their three fully-sighted minders off one its planes at Stansted citing "safety" considerations. Some people never learn.
Hmmmm. Seems the Courts, along with both the IAA and EASA were onside with FR on this one. Ryanair ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS said very very plainly on their website, that Blind or visually impaired must inform the local Call centre to register as such a passenger. There are LEGAL restrictions as to how many can be carried. Key word: LEGAL. The pax affected never informed FR. Therefore there was too many on the flight, it was illegal to carry them, and FR were left with no choice but to offload them. They were carried later, and in appropriate numbers.
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT In September 2004 Ryanair unveiled ambitious plans for an in-flight entertainment system. Passengers would pay €7 for the use of a laptop-type device which would show films, cartoons and TV shows.
O'Leary predicted that Ryanair would make "enormous sums of money" from the system. Things didn't quite work out as planned. The system left passengers underwhelmed and it has since been quietly dropped.
Yep, it didnt work. FR put the effort in, but the trial failed. Why pour out a system you can see isnt working. They conceded that the Sector lengths were too short, and they washed their hands of the system. Why hang onto it?