Ryanair - 6

[frfly]

This is my major concern with 100% webcheck. It just takes one system shutdown again to cause 1000's of PAX not being able to check in. Airports and contract out agencies will not and should not step in the cover the blow should this happen.

[davidjohnson6]

It just takes one system shutdown again to cause 1000's of PAX not being able to check in.

frfly - not quite sure I follow your reasoning here.

The important thing is to ensure that passengers can checkin online over as wide a time window before departure as possible. As Ryanair do not sell flexible tickets relatively few people have a need to delay webcheckin until only a few hours before departure.

If webcheck is open online from (for example) 5 days in advance, this leaves plenty of time for people to print the boarding pass at home. If one tries to checkin 24 hours in advance and the webserver is down.... just wait a couple of hours and try again. FR would be wise to strongly encourage pax to checkin early rather than leaving it to the last minute. Many major corporate websites are outsourced to 3rd parties with 24/7 monitoring and reliability guarantees - the sysadmin team should have specific instructions as to how to restart the webservice for each of its clients in the event of failure. I will assume that Ryanair are taking a similiar approach.

Once initial teething issues are resolved, IT systems like webservers tend to experience failure when they are put under a high degree of strain - either an unexpected surge in people visiting the website or because earlier warning signs of IT server strain were repeatedly ignored. Sometimes I have difficulty booking a flight at 8 pm in the evening - I've never had a problem at 3 am.

5 years ago, when everyone had to checkin at the airport, there would have been a big surge in boarding card issuance around 6 am on Saturday (and thus a higher risk of major system outage at a really bad time), but Tuesday mid-afternoon would have been relatively quiet. By moving to online checkin and spreading the demand for checkin over the week, the 6 am spike is reduced, and the webserver is less likely to experience a major outage.

[BigT2207]

Ryanair

New:Hahn, Frankfurt-Hahn (HHN) to Alicante (ALC)
New:Hahn, Frankfurt-Hahn (HHN) to Carcassonne, Salvaza (CCF)
New:Hahn, Frankfurt-Hahn (HHN) to Osijek (OSI)
New:Hahn, Frankfurt-Hahn (HHN) to Rimini, Miramare (RMI)

[frfly]

This is just from previous experiences. The website can have problems - espcecially during major seat sale promotions. Im sure this is currently being looked at, as there will not be the resources at the airports to have check in desks let alone check in staff should the system fail one day.

WebCheck is currently open from 14 days up until 4 hours. It should maybe be extended - perhaps you could check in online as soon as you have booked your flight. This would ensure the majority of passengers do it.I dont know how the newskies system would cope with this, but it is a possiblility. Currently I think U2 allow online check in fom 3 months prior to departure.

[jpthomas72]

Website: Booking problems ?

As you mention the website: I didn't manage to get two bookings done both yesterday and tomorrow (HHN-MAN and BHX-HHN), on two different debit cards. 'Your Session is locked'. Kept reloading over night, no progress. Not very helpful. Maybe they are officially not supporting Firefox anymore ? Now have to check my bank account if they have taken the money off. Good news for their BHX competitors as not being able to book is quite a big show-stopper.
Juergen

[pee]

'Your Session is locked'

I can just urge you to check your e-mail messages. Sometimes while your 'session is locked', the bookings still manage to succeed. If you keep trying, you could end having more than one ticket (and charge to your card as well).

Generally this software has been a big disaster, mainly due to the hardware resource consumption issues.

[jpthomas72]

Booking problems

Yes, what you say happened to me before, 'Session is locked' and I got the email, but now the booking processes really have died. No email, and checked my internet banking which would tell me instantly if something is taken from my account ('available balance'). Of course I'll only book LH or BE tomorrow or so when I'm completely sure Ryanair didn't take anything. But not try Ryanair a third time for the next days. It's annoying, they move BHX-HHN to such a handy departure time on Fridays, and I can't book it. Well, thanks to BHX and UK charges, actually going out (end April) the price is very similar on LH or BE, while as you know Ryanair blackmailed HHN so you can now fly out of HHN nearly for free.

[daz211]

this is just not on !

Ryanair has always guaranteed no fuel surcharges, so why
are Thomas cook charging passengers a fuel surcharge when they book
flights through Ryanair ?

Advertising link removed

Or am I reading this all wrong ?

[davidjohnson6]

daz - I do not wish to start an Inquisition and it's entirely up to you as to what you say (or don't say) about yourself on this website, but because of your general comments on Ryanair, the perception might arise that you have a conflict of interest in some of your posts

[BFS101]

From another forum (credit to Kaitak for the story)...

Ryanair after internet bloggers!! Situation arose when a blogger alleged that he'd found a bug on the FR booking system. Professional response from Ryanair as usual. Love the comments from the public at the bottom of the links... Full stories below.

What happened when a blogger decided to take on Ryanair

Ryanair doesn't want anything to do with 'lunatic' bloggers!

[Seljuk22]

Additional a/c for ALC?

FR announced ALC-HHN 4 weekly and tomorrow new routes from ALC to Lubeck, Aarhus and Santiago de Compostela should be announced.

I think therefore it could be that ALC will get an additional a/c or other routes will be reduced or cut.

[GnRdL]

Yes, 4th aircraft comes in june & 5th aircraft in july. All these new routes (HHN, AAR, LBC & SCQ) will start in july. With this new announce will be 37 routes from/to ALC.

Groetjes!

[racedo]

daz - I do not wish to start an Inquisition and it's entirely up to you as to what you say (or don't say) about yourself on this website, but because of your general comments on Ryanair, the perception might arise that you have a conflict of interest in some of your posts

Doesn't mean that his question is incorrect though does it ?

On one hand people jump up and accuse FR of scamming people and when someone else does it for people on FR routes the same people seem to keep really quiet.

Thomas Cook charged 'fictitious' fuel surcharge on Ryanair ticket - Telegraph

Thomas Cook have indicated they intent to refund the Passengers so guess FR is correct in this one and the otehr with screen scrapers.

[apaul]

I don't like ficticious fuel surcharges, but I don't see Ryanair's vastly inflated per passenger per leg card fees as any less dishonest. The same goes for plenty of other Ryanair 'fees'.

[Seat62K]

I refer to the "additional aircraft at Alicante" question.
When I was at Alicante the other day I noticed two Ryanair aircraft with all port side doors closed. Perhaps existing aircraft based there are under-utilised......
Nice to see the Madrid departure looking busy as I wasn't sure how Spanish travellers would take to using Ryanair for domestic travel (and I'd previously heard from Ryanair crew based in Spain that Alicante-Zaragoza loads can be very hit-and-miss).

[EGAC_Ramper]

Previous Post.

I wouldn't say under utilised possibly as during this winter/economic climate even here at East Mids we have 6 based a/c for the route schedule although we also have 2 spares sitting around awaiting busier summer season no doubt to disappear off to other bigger bases. Although saying that they do get rotated through the routes with the other aircraft.


Regards

[Seat62K]

I've just read some posts several pages back concerning Ryanair not offering connecting flights and recall that when I arrived at Madrid on Ryanair a few weeks ago that there was a monitor on the way to passport control/baggage reclaim specifically listing connecting flights. I noticed a Ryanair flight to Alicante on this monitor. I did wonder at the time whether the airline is aware of this.

[Cyrano]

there was a monitor on the way to passport control/baggage reclaim specifically listing connecting flights

But surely that's just showing all the departing flights due to leave in the next (e.g.) 2 hours, not "flights-that-someone-has-chosen-to-designate-as-connecting-flights"? Nothing to do with whether Ryanair guarantees the connection!

[Seat62K]

No, whilst walking to passport control there was a separate bank of monitors showing all departures; here I'm referring to a monitor clearly indicating that these were connecting flights. This monitor had a much smaller number of flights.

[racedo]

No, whilst walking to passport control there was a separate bank of monitors showing all departures; here I'm referring to a monitor clearly indicating that these were connecting flights. This monitor had a much smaller number of flights.

Good spot.

Could be something that is being tested in a small local market without much media fanfare or anybody saying anything. Wouldn't be the first time someone tried an idea well away from media.......things need to be tested somewhere I guess. If it works it may get looked at further if not then not.