When the Special Advisor to Minister of State for European affairs flew from Dublin to Krakow 17th May all I see on the Ministers foreign travel report is €20.54 out and the same back as a charge for priority boarding and seat allocation (€7 + €10 + 2% we pay) but no mention made of baggage charge or the fare paid etc.

Sober -

Perhaps that's why the EU's financial returns have not passed audit for 16 years!:yuk:

Ryanair offers to sell 29pc Aer Lingus stake
 

Only EU airlines who have obtained acceptances from 50.1% of Aer Lingus shareholders need apply
Ryanair Offers To Sell Aer Lingus Stake To Another EU Airline

Er I believe person in question is Irish Government Minister and not EU.

The EU has a love/hate relationship with Ryanair. On the one hand they hate the consumer-rights issues and certain other aspects of the business model (crew T&Cs, aid from regional airports) and MOL’s constant badmouthing, usually when his takeover bids get blocked. But Ryanair is and always has been a poster child for EU airline liberalisation and many politicos in both the Parliament and the Commission have no issue with the disappearance of the legacy carriers, replaced by Ryanair and its clones on shorthaul, and Emirates and its clones on longhaul.

In any case, if you want/have to fly between Brussels and Dublin, the choice is between Ryanair and Aer Lingus, so no matter how generous your travel allowances, you’re not going to get frills – and Aer Lingus’ flight timings are dreadful for BRU-originating travel.

More (shock horror ) Ryanair news from BBC
 

BBC News - Ryanair flight from Edinburgh struck by lightning


Somewhat unusual to divert after a strike on departure, some effect on electrics/pressurisation control ?

CPS

imho, just as likely to be that they would have needed post strike inspections at next landing. Maybe Ryanair don't have full facilities at Alicante? Maybe those checks could have resulted in the aircraft being AOG?

Diverting to one of their bases for that check to me seems a good decision. Minimum disruption to the airline and the passengers.

Probably right, in spite of it being a base I would imagine ALC has no RYR engineers following the "slimming down" of their engineering cover a few years back. I often wonder if flying Engs + spare parts around in a Lear Jet really is more cost effective, I guess it is.

Tough to pass judgement on the Captain's decision without all the facts as to what instruments and or equipment that may have been affected by the strike.

It was a departure alternate, that's why!

Gob... neat name... :rolleyes:

Prestwick is a big maintenance base for Ryanair. They have a Ryanair hanger there.

NEW ROUTE

Paris BVA to Trieste

Ryanair : un Beauvais ? Trieste cet hiver | Air Journal

imho, just as likely to be that they would have needed post strike inspections at next landing. Maybe Ryanair don't have full facilities at Alicante? Maybe those checks could have resulted in the aircraft being AOG?

Diverting to one of their bases for that check to me seems a good decision. Minimum disruption to the airline and the passengers.

Could be more than a check. Had one once and a repair was needed. Definitely a maintenance base issue: plus a large base is likely to have more a/c and SBY crews etc. to whisk the pax on their way.

Anyone going to update on STN-SZG this winter. Still not on sale, starting to think its been dropped.

To my knowledge, routes from Stansted to Ancona, Kaunas, Lourdes, Plovdiv, Salzburg and Tallinn are all still waiting to be put on sale.

All other routes not available through the winter from Stansted are not expected to operate.

They will be available by end of August at the latest.

May I ask why Ryanair tend to release seats for a given month quite a bit later than other LCCs ?
I'm assuming that some routes not being on sale beyond 4th November (i.e. barely more than 3 months away) is due to some specific reason, but FR still seem to regularly be the last major LCC to come to market by a sizeable margin.

I know that forward bookings beyond 3 months are low, but these are presumably non trivial and it's worth picking up those extra potential sales - or at least telling people about the planned schedules so that customers can make plans for a trip. And yes, I know that once a flight goes on sale it becomes much harder to do significant changes to the scheduling of the fleet in a flexible way, but slot conferences are far in advance of Ryanair seats going on sale.

I'm puzzled though as to why Ryanair need so much more time than Easyjet, Wizz, Norwegian, and all their other major competitors, and also why they don't seem concerned. Anyone knowledgeable able to suggest a reason as to Ryanair's rationale ?

Ryanair Q1 profits fall 21% (as guided) to ?78m traffic rises?

FR have also confirmed that discussions with the daa about growth at DUB have got nowhere and by the sounds of it they are only doing slightly better with MAG at STN.

Perhaps one possible reason is ongoing airport (re)negotiations, which as you know is a no-holds-barred activity in Ryanair's case. "If you want us to fly to your airport this winter, you need to pay another €x00,000 to Airport Marketing Services, otherwise we won't do it. See, we've loaded a lot of our winter schedule, but we haven't loaded your flights, and we won't unless you agree to pay."

My guess would be that the problem is that the DAA probably can't do a deal with FR because they'd be upsetting those wearing green!!