Passengers vote Ryan air as one of the worlds worse airline
Ryanair pulls plans for fat tax... but shows us that money is all that matters
Ryanair will not implement the controversial idea to impose a 'fat tax', only because it cannot enforce it within the limits of its 25 minute turnaround, nor via its online check-in process.
It seems ludicrous that flyers would offer advice on how the airline could offer a poorer service, but more than 16,000 passengers voted in a Ryanair online poll to find a new way to cream money from customers in additional charges. Wonderfully of course, if the public chooses the charge, it must be okay for Ryanair to impose it. Surely? But then it was doubtful anyone was expecting the idea to charge a fee on extra body weight.
According to the results, 4.6 per cent voted to charge for every waist inch over 45in. (male) and 40in. (female); 3.11 per cent wanted to charge for every point in excess of 40 points on the body mass index; and 2.37 per cent wanted a charge for a second seat if a passenger's waist touches both armrests.
Ryanair's off-kilter Robin Hood mentality of robbing from a minority to give cheap seats to the poor, in this case amounts to little else than playground bullying. Did it really ever think that the way to satisfy its customers would be to embarrass them hideously, telling them the public has voted - they are too fat and will have to pay for the extra seat their rolls of fat bleed on to?
The interesting point here is that customer satisfaction, human decency and plain common sense seem never to have been part of the decision-making process for Ryanair. Nor was it during the airline's contentious suggestion to charge passengers 'a pound to spend to have a penny' - an idea which had the media, the public and trade bodies reeling. Yet while we expected an about-turn to appease the nation, Michael O'Leary dryly said: "All this pious stuff about if you're serving teas and snacks, you can't charge for entering the toilet. All right then.... we'll let you enter free, but you'll have to pay a pound to get back out again."
He told a UK newspaper that the charge would bring an estimated £15m per year and said: "eventually it's going to happen... The problem is Boeing can't come up with a mechanism on the toilet door to take coins. We're suggesting they go back and look at a mechanism where you'd swipe the credit card for a quid on the toilet door. They've gone off to look at that."
It’s doubtful that any aviation fair trade body would support either of these plans. Some have suggested that Ryanair are aware such proposals would never go ahead and that this is simply a publicity stunt to show just how cheap the airline is. It's a pity however, that O'Leary seems unable to recognise the difference between cheap and inexpensive. It seems unlikely that that this kind of cheap publicity will win favour with passengers.
What a joke the airline has become! But the customers of course, aren't laughing. Type 'Ryanair' into Google and there's a 2:3 ratio of Ryanair's own sites compared to the majority number of customer blogs and chatrooms discussing the pitfalls and poor service of the no-frills, no-thought airline. That's a 2:3 majority of bad press.
It's amazing that an airline so blase about its customer's wellbeing could continue to do well in this climate. Most would think that during these times it would have a more strategic fight to haul in the lion's share of a declining market, but if Ryanair's vote was an index of the public, it just goes to show - when a recession hits, all that matters is money.
- Mary-Anne Baldwin, Journalist, Airline Fleet Management