Ryanair's customer service becomes an irrelevance if they cease to fly routes which are useful to their customers. Over recent months I flew 22 Ryanair sectors - all to/from Manchester. This year I don't expect to fly with them at all - because as a customer they no longer offer me a useful product (I prefer Aer Lingus on MAN-DUB, and Ryanair offer nothing else from this area). However warm and lovable they manage to become under any new CEO the message is simple: fly a route which is useful to me as a customer and I will book with you. If you choose not to, I will book with a competitor. I will not travel to a remote field to accommodate the ego of MOL and his crew after they have failed to bully an airport authority into servicing Ryanair at unsustainable prices (or free?). Customer service becomes unimportant if you no longer sell products (routes) which are attractive to your former regular customers.
As a customer, I am not intrinsically anti-Ryanair. I neither love them nor hate them. They are simply a provider of a travel product which reflects the price paid for it. If they were to resume a decent offering of routes from MAN, I would happily book them again tomorrow. Ex-customers like myself don't *hate* the company ... we just recognize they no longer offer inventory (routes) which are remotely relevant to us.
Perhaps MOL's successor would be best served by swallowing some pride, paying the very reasonable £3.50 per pax charge which airports such as MAN offered, and re-entering markets with a proven customer base there for the taking.
SHED.
Last edited by Shed-on-a-Pole; 3rd Jan 2010 at 11:57.
Reason: Minor correction