Ryanair - 9

[BigFrank]

Profit statement

I am still amazed (ok, after all these years it has now degenerated merely to "surprised") that the ongoing illegal-under-EU-regulations subsidies demanded and received by Ryanair all over the continent are neither mentioned in the printed accounts nor enforced in any courts.

¿ Proof that the EU is de facto totally out of control?

¿ Proof that the EU is little more than " a cowboy outfit" ?

Cf one of the most succesful companies in the EU ????????????

[EI-BUD]

A news item on RTE Irish television last night said that Ryanair has said that it cannot rule out charging for bringing carry on luggage on board its aircraft, although a firm decision had not been made, the RTE news felt it significant enough to report on.!

Perhaps a piece of free publicity, maybe FR would expect to see a surge in bookings before the date that it comes into effect!!!

EI-BUD

[ayroplain]

A news item on RTE Irish television last night said that Ryanair has said that it cannot rule out charging for bringing carry on luggage on board its aircraft, although a firm decision had not been made, the RTE news felt it significant enough to report on.

I'm nearly sure that I read somewhere in the past few weeks that some other airline (can't remember which) has already introduced this charge and thought, bad move. In FR's case not so much that people will abandon FR as such for another airline but the large numbers of their passengers who presently fly a lot will fly less often due to the extra cost. The original move to charge only for hold luggage left people with choice but charging for cabin baggage means that only day-trippers don't lose out. Or will even a laptop qualify as carry-on luggage? Let's hope that this is another case of pay-to-pee publicity as I'm confident that the introduction of such a charge would be a step too far.

[barrymah]

Both the comments and the tv stuff indicate clearly the reason for the so-called "idea" - cheapest publicity you can get. Cawley has been well trained by M. O'L

BTW, one has to ask why RTE bothered - they wanted to add to the opinion 'Ryanair will try anything' or they wanted to 'knock' Ryr, or, most likely, they actually believed it.

Think, how would it be done? A fee at booking, on what basis? No control at boarding, so whatever you can carry??

I'll be amazed....

[DublinPole]

Wizzair introduced it a month back barely anyone picked up on it, after all it wasn't Ryanair and anything Ryanair does is automatically 100x worse than any other airline doing the same thing.

Wizz free policy:
If your cabin baggage is of size 42x32x25cm or smaller it can be taken onboard free of charge. It must fit under the seat in front of you.

Wizz paid policy:
If your cabin baggage is larger but not exceeding 56x45x25cm, you can take it onboard for a €10 fee.

The spin they used for it at first is laughable, in that they said they are now giving people a greater choice and now they have the option of taking a large bag on and paying a fee or bring on the normal bag for free. In reality the normal bag is now a much smaller size, whilst the 'large' bag is the old normal sized one that used to be free, although they seem to have changed the description on the site now

They also claim it will help their on time performance but policing it and preventing people with small bags using the lockers (which now are not allowed to be used by people with small bags) which is what they are doing will surely cost them time also?

Wizz Air launches new cabin baggage policy

[Sober Lark]

And what are the dimensions of the 'Ryanair official cabin bag' they sell you online?

[RAT 5]

"And what are the dimensions of the 'Ryanair official cabin bag' they sell you online?"

Smaller than standard ICAO, which is a real pain if travelling one way with another carrier, e.g. ez who use the ICAO size, and then RYR or some other non-standard carrier on any other leg. They all use the same a/c; bins are the same size. Why make life difficult? But that is a very open question with very long and varied answers.

And remember, airlines both LOCo & charter, make a big splash about being able to take 10kgs (ez even more) on board FOR FREE. It has always been the case and forever always will be. Are you going to discriminate between a man with an umbrella, or nothing? and lady with normal hand-bag? a duty free bag? even a pile of magazines under your arm or heaven forbid in a plastic bag? And don't even start to think about a mother with all the baby stuff. Obviously some carriers are starting to have the philosophy that they provide a ticket for transport on 1 person between A & B. AND NOTHING ELSE. Anything outside this contractual envelope is chargeable.

Could this size be anything to do with the fact that even with RYR's smaller size they can not fit more than about 140 in the cabin bins? They imposed a rule, but if everyone obeys it and carries their own bag, some will have to go in the hold anyway; for free. Good game.

Interesting article in Daily T's travel section about beating travel costs. It is often cheaper to take the servant with you on a trip, (extra pax ticket) to use their extra baggage allowance than pay for an extra bag. How stupid is that?You can buy a seat for a musical instrument, i.e only 1 pax travelling, but effectively an extra piece of baggage in the seat, but if you purchase the seat only, no musical instrument, you can't take the baggage allowance? It is classified as a no-show. And if you do purchase a seat for the musical instrument you don't get an extra baggage allowance as well. I'm sure the legal boys would have a field day with those conundrums.

Bring on the strap-hanging pax with no bins at all.

[ayroplain]

Wizzair 42 x 32 x 25? Hmm, if adopted that would rule out the official FR bag which is 55 x 40 x 20 and also my own bag which is below current limits and easily fits under the seat.

Like I said, bad move if it comes to pass. I certainly wouldn't pay £20 extra for a return flight for such a small bag.

[racedo]

Traffic up 4% in October

Ryanair today (6 Nov) released passenger and load factor stats for October 2012 as follows:

Oct 11

Oct 12

Change

Yr to Oct 12

Passengers

7.27M

7.54M

+4%

79.3M

Load Factor

84%

82%

-2%

82%

October 2012 was the seventh month in succession that Ryanair has carried over 7m passengers (including a record 8.9m in August). Ryanair remains the only airline in Europe to carry over 7m passengers in one month. Ryanair also carried over 79m passengers for the 12 months to October 2012, which is another record.

[Sober Lark]

Hi Racedo, any idea what's the total short haul passenger traffic for Europe for the same period? (12 months to Oct 2012 that is)

[racedo]

Hi Racedo, any idea what's the total short haul passenger traffic for Europe for the same period? (12 months to Oct 2012 that is)

No idea

Anna Aero may have it but key thing is what do you define as short haul.

You going on the 12% item in the half year results, always a difficult one because there probably will be no standard agreement on total figure.

[apaul]

Passenger growth and load factors are a bit insipid compared to easyJet's 6.2% and 88.4% this October. Presumably the gap in size will shrink further during the winter.

[BKS Air Transport]

I was just reading an article in today's Daily Mail, in which it reports that MOL's long term aim is to bulid up to carrying 20% of European traffic. One of the ways he intends to reach this figure is by taking passengers from legacy carriers and their 'expensive' 'loss making' short haul routes.

I have no problem with this strategy, but I know many people who have never flown on Ryanair, and flatly refuse to do so, because they fear being ripped off in the booking process and/or poor service. This all comes from the things people read about in the papers, and the sort of statements that MOL and his senior management are prone to come out with.

Cultivating an image as the 'nasty' airline (intentionally or otherwise) is hardly the right strategy to win passengers over from legacy carriers. They are effectively alienating a sizeable group of potential passengers.

This is a shame, as I have travelled with Ryanair a number of times, and they have delivered me and my baggage to my destination on time, without fail, at a very good cost, and with perfectly reasonable on-board service from pleasant crews. I can't say this of some of my other airline experiences.

I feel MOL and his colleagues need to think more carefully about the things they say, stop shooting themselves in the foot, and start emphasising the things that they do well. Otherwise I can't see their target as being achievable.

[ryan2000]

I can never understand why Ryanair play down their good points. I traveled with an elderly relative on sveral occasions and they treated her like a V.I.P. On another occasion I mislaid a name on an online booking and they changed it without any charge or difficulty.

The one thing that frightens off older passengers is their policy of leaving you to your own devices if a flight is canceled. It costs them as much in the long run to compensate passengers so they should adopt a more hands on approach and sort out accomodation etc if people request it.

[BigFrank]

Commercially self-defeating, immoral and ILLEGAL

I remain amazed that "industry insiders" (I presume) on a website of this nature can post ignorant comments as below:

"The one thing that frightens off older passengers is their policy of leaving you to your own devices if a flight is canceled..."

I know that the UK CAA has scant interest in ensuring that Ryanair obeys law EU 261/2004. Ditto their Irish cousins.

¿ But surely at least one of the remaining 25 jurisdictions is willing to uphold this law ?

[The SSK]

I have been to a meeting of the European Consumer Centres, co-chaired by the Irish ECC and attended by Ryanair's Customer Service Director. The first thing you notice is that there is clearly a friendly working relationship between them.

My conclusion was that Ryanair do settle their claims, to the satisfaction of the enforcement body. Their trick is to create the mindset amongst their customers that leads to the claims not being made in the first place.

[BigFrank]

Irish (and other) enforcement of EU261/2004

As per my previous post, I already factored in the cosy working relationship between Ryanair and the local Gardai-equivalents and thus discounted the Irish authorities as enforcers of the law. (After all, any "jurisdiction" which could clutch "bumpkins" like Sean Quinn et al to its bosom is hardly likely to nail "silver-tongued" M 0'L, is it?)

I am also aware of the scandalous use of a Ryanair jet by the EU Transport Commissioner at the time of the last Irish EU referendum, so I'm not holding my breath about HQ-in-Brussels either.

But surely at least one of the other 25 will uphold the law !

¿ Poland ? ¿ Slovenia ? ¿ Andorra? ¿ Lichtenstein ? ¿ Vatican City ?

[racedo]

As per my previous post, I already factored in the cosy working relationship between Ryanair and the local Gardai-equivalents and thus discounted the Irish authorities as enforcers of the law. (After all, any "jurisdiction" which could clutch "bumpkins" like Sean Quinn et al to its bosom is hardly likely to nail "silver-tongued" M 0'L, is it?)

I am also aware of the scandalous use of a Ryanair jet by the EU Transport Commissioner at the time of the last Irish EU referendum, so I'm not holding my breath about HQ-in-Brussels either.

But surely at least one of the other 25 will uphold the law !

¿ Poland ? ¿ Slovenia ? ¿ Andorra? ¿ Lichtenstein ? ¿ Vatican City ?

Dear oh dear so having a friendly professional relationship between an airline director and consumer organisation is not allowed............who knew. Do you think any other airline has adversarial relationship with their national consumer bodies ? Do you think businesses who deal with consumer bodies should have adversarial relationships or professional ones ?

As for lending out an aircraft ..... well given the stated aim of the company was in support of the last but one referendum then they perfectly entitled to spend their money supporting it, as was Intel / Apple and a host of other companies based in Ireland.

There is nothing illegal or scandalous about it as it wasn't exactly a well kept secret was it.
As a number of Ryanair AGMs have occured since and it was not raised as an issue by shareholders I think they don't care.

As to Mr Quinn, well he was born and reared in an area of Ireland that comes under juristiction of UK and maintains that is his place of residence.

Unless you happy to go to court to prove they have broken the law all we have to rely on is just another vindictive statement.

[racedo]

I have been to a meeting of the European Consumer Centres, co-chaired by the Irish ECC and attended by Ryanair's Customer Service Director. The first thing you notice is that there is clearly a friendly working relationship between them.

Question was every everybody talking to each other or was it business on one side and consumer groups on the other and never the twain shall meet ?

[The SSK]

It was a friendly and constructive meeting, until the boss of EUClaim took the floor, accusing all and sundry of deception and ineptitude.