Ryanair - 6

[davidjohnson6]

Online checkin fee

I've tried to analyse why people are getting wound up over this..... and why the "Stop making a fuss" crowd should not simply ignore it.

Very few argue about FR's need to make a profit out of its customers which is what any business tries to do.

The point instead is that the FR are implicitly presenting the check-in fee as some kind of optional extra (even if this is not explicitly stated as such) when it is in fact a part of the non-divisible core product.

Ford might sell me a car with wheels being an optional extra for additional cost, allowing them to claim that the car is available for a cheap price - I could then choose whether to buy my wheels direct from Ford, or buy the wheels somewhere else (like a repair garage). While a car certainly needs wheels to be usable, I have the possibility of purchasing the wheels from some other company.

For a flight with Ryanair, only Ryanair can issue a boarding card for a flight - thus if I wish to fly I am compelled to also buy their own checkin product. The only possible benefit is if the checkin can be purchased at a time substantially after the ticket is purchased, thus allowing consumers to defer both expenditure and a decision as to whether or not to actually fly until later (e.g. booked on short weekend, but only want to go if the weather forecast is sunny). If checkin must be purchased at the same time as the ticket, then it's a swizz to try to present it as a separate product and pretend the ticket is available for a cheaper price.

In effect we have what is known as tied selling - generally bad news for the consumer as it distorts markets and competition and makes it more difficult for consumers to understand the product they are buying.

Until the 1990s, travel agents would often advertise in the window a 2-week package holiday for a cheap price. The catch was that this cheap price was only available if the customer agreed to purchase the travel agent's own-brand expensive travel insurance - even if you could prove purchase of higher quality travel insurance from a different company. The insurance provided was sometimes derisory in coverage and thus people often needed to buy a 2nd insurance policy to have a reasonable level of cover, but the travel agents could claim they were helping customers by ensuring they were protected in the event of accident. When challenged as to why insurance from a different company was not sufficient, travel agents would say "We are not familiar with their procedures or standards for accepting claims and therefore cannot be certain that their insurance policies are good enough for our holiday-makers", meaning "We don't care, you must buy our travel insurance or we won't sell you the package holiday". The UK Govt deemed this to be anti-competitive, and banned the practice.