Bondage at 36,000 feet
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Skagness on the beach
Posts: 882
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Bondage at 36,000 feet
Bondage at 36,000 feet
Ryanair has overtaken BA by making the ordeal of flying a selling point
The Guardian (UK) 09/12/05
author: Peter Preston
Copyright (C) 2005 The Guardian; Source: World Reporter (TM)
Cry victory for Tampere, Rzeszow, Kaunas and, indeed, Bydgoszcz! They - along with 85 other faraway places with strange-sounding names - have just made Ryanair your carrier of supreme choice: more bums (3.26 million of them) on more seats in August even than BA. It's another triumph for Michael O'Leary, for rampant expansion - and for sheer, unadulterated, un-Irish nastiness. Welcome to MasochismAir.
Here we are again, waiting to check in with 102 people in front of us because the bus from the big city - 60 miles away - arrived five seconds before we did. Nothing's moving. A Croatian girl at the front has left her passport in the hotel (60 miles away). A Spanish boy thought that identity cards would get him on a plane to Stansted.
And the familiar business of the baggage rebalancing is already far advanced. Right down those two stretching, desultory queues, lads in trainers have their suitcases open on the floor, shuffling stuff back and forth. "Is it under 15 kilos now?" "No, still bloody 17.5." Piles of jeans and T-shirts are slyly decanted into a black garbage bag to be carried through below check-in sightlines - then stuffed into hand luggage. The floor itself is strewn with mounds of crumpled cotton debris, as though Mandelson's China boycott has gone flops in a trice.
Occasionally, after glum altercations, company weight watchers dispatch cursing transgressors to queue at an overflow office and pay for their sins. When does a £40 ticket cost you double the money? When you're 10 kilos over a load. Expletives seldom deleted. So back to the crawl through security, and the sharp-elbowed rush when the boys with the black bags disregard any hope of an orderly boarding routine (as explained via a defective loudspeaker system). So to seats so closely packed you can hear the first squeaks of incipient pulmonary embolism starting four rows away.
Nasty? Of course. But insanely cheap some of the time (unless you're old, young, disabled or want to change your booking) and relatively efficient most of the time. MasochismAir takes you to places you never knew existed, destinations without reasonable alternatives. That's not the whole of its branding success, though.
For O'Leary doesn't play emerald super-yob by accident. He's just a "jumped-up Paddy" who "doesn't give a ****e", because he says so. Worried about the environment? Then "sell your car and walk". Worried about Europe's commissioners? They're "morons". Fill in the blanks after B and A "and you get bastards". His most unctuous ballad is called "Screw the share price, this is a fares war". He's honed Mr O'Nasty, the guy who liked to charge extra for wheelchairs.
One lurking strand of Ryanair's subliminal pitch, in short, seems to translate BO down that stretching queue into bloody ordeal. This isn't supposed to be a pleasant experience circa 1986, with welcome smiles and blond stewardesses handing out cocktails. This is a carefully constructed obstacle race. O'Leary's increasing operational shift from Stansted to Luton puts the airport of reality TV choice back at screen centre. I'm a nonentity, get me out of here.
And, of course, it works brilliantly, 3.26 million times over. Decades of airline marketing tried to make flying a wondrous experience, full of cosseted comfort and luxurious treats. The truth, though, was always grimly different. The ordeal was constant; it just wasn't made into a selling point.
Michael O'Leary has put that straight for ever. Bondage and humiliation still function at 36,000 feet. Ryanair prospers because indignity sells. There's the same retrospective glow from the standing and scrabbling as you get from kneeling in front of a pile of jeans in Primark, Peckham, and finding a £5 pair that fit. I went, I fought, I endured - and now I have a bargain tale to tell. Call it victim consumerism: classless examination by indignity.
How does BA strike back? The good news, maybe, is that they've finally got the message, courtesy of Gate Gourmet, days of inaction and buckets of bile. On my last long-haul test a few days ago, check-in pushed a scrap of paper back over the desk along with my boarding pass. What's this? It was a voucher to spend $20 (Canadian) on any airport meal before leaving, "because the in-flight food may not be up to our normal standards".
Good, old-style thinking, except that the only "meals" on offer before the departure gate were polythene-wrapped bagels at a bar. I notionally dined on two packets of peanuts, an apple and a Bloody Mary, and left the notional change. The cabin stewards - serving below-normal-standards cheese and biscuits - were surly all the way home. But the captain wasn't on message with his farewell "thank-yous" and "pleasant trips". On MasochismAir, we never forget we have no choice.
Ryanair has overtaken BA by making the ordeal of flying a selling point
The Guardian (UK) 09/12/05
author: Peter Preston
Copyright (C) 2005 The Guardian; Source: World Reporter (TM)
Cry victory for Tampere, Rzeszow, Kaunas and, indeed, Bydgoszcz! They - along with 85 other faraway places with strange-sounding names - have just made Ryanair your carrier of supreme choice: more bums (3.26 million of them) on more seats in August even than BA. It's another triumph for Michael O'Leary, for rampant expansion - and for sheer, unadulterated, un-Irish nastiness. Welcome to MasochismAir.
Here we are again, waiting to check in with 102 people in front of us because the bus from the big city - 60 miles away - arrived five seconds before we did. Nothing's moving. A Croatian girl at the front has left her passport in the hotel (60 miles away). A Spanish boy thought that identity cards would get him on a plane to Stansted.
And the familiar business of the baggage rebalancing is already far advanced. Right down those two stretching, desultory queues, lads in trainers have their suitcases open on the floor, shuffling stuff back and forth. "Is it under 15 kilos now?" "No, still bloody 17.5." Piles of jeans and T-shirts are slyly decanted into a black garbage bag to be carried through below check-in sightlines - then stuffed into hand luggage. The floor itself is strewn with mounds of crumpled cotton debris, as though Mandelson's China boycott has gone flops in a trice.
Occasionally, after glum altercations, company weight watchers dispatch cursing transgressors to queue at an overflow office and pay for their sins. When does a £40 ticket cost you double the money? When you're 10 kilos over a load. Expletives seldom deleted. So back to the crawl through security, and the sharp-elbowed rush when the boys with the black bags disregard any hope of an orderly boarding routine (as explained via a defective loudspeaker system). So to seats so closely packed you can hear the first squeaks of incipient pulmonary embolism starting four rows away.
Nasty? Of course. But insanely cheap some of the time (unless you're old, young, disabled or want to change your booking) and relatively efficient most of the time. MasochismAir takes you to places you never knew existed, destinations without reasonable alternatives. That's not the whole of its branding success, though.
For O'Leary doesn't play emerald super-yob by accident. He's just a "jumped-up Paddy" who "doesn't give a ****e", because he says so. Worried about the environment? Then "sell your car and walk". Worried about Europe's commissioners? They're "morons". Fill in the blanks after B and A "and you get bastards". His most unctuous ballad is called "Screw the share price, this is a fares war". He's honed Mr O'Nasty, the guy who liked to charge extra for wheelchairs.
One lurking strand of Ryanair's subliminal pitch, in short, seems to translate BO down that stretching queue into bloody ordeal. This isn't supposed to be a pleasant experience circa 1986, with welcome smiles and blond stewardesses handing out cocktails. This is a carefully constructed obstacle race. O'Leary's increasing operational shift from Stansted to Luton puts the airport of reality TV choice back at screen centre. I'm a nonentity, get me out of here.
And, of course, it works brilliantly, 3.26 million times over. Decades of airline marketing tried to make flying a wondrous experience, full of cosseted comfort and luxurious treats. The truth, though, was always grimly different. The ordeal was constant; it just wasn't made into a selling point.
Michael O'Leary has put that straight for ever. Bondage and humiliation still function at 36,000 feet. Ryanair prospers because indignity sells. There's the same retrospective glow from the standing and scrabbling as you get from kneeling in front of a pile of jeans in Primark, Peckham, and finding a £5 pair that fit. I went, I fought, I endured - and now I have a bargain tale to tell. Call it victim consumerism: classless examination by indignity.
How does BA strike back? The good news, maybe, is that they've finally got the message, courtesy of Gate Gourmet, days of inaction and buckets of bile. On my last long-haul test a few days ago, check-in pushed a scrap of paper back over the desk along with my boarding pass. What's this? It was a voucher to spend $20 (Canadian) on any airport meal before leaving, "because the in-flight food may not be up to our normal standards".
Good, old-style thinking, except that the only "meals" on offer before the departure gate were polythene-wrapped bagels at a bar. I notionally dined on two packets of peanuts, an apple and a Bloody Mary, and left the notional change. The cabin stewards - serving below-normal-standards cheese and biscuits - were surly all the way home. But the captain wasn't on message with his farewell "thank-yous" and "pleasant trips". On MasochismAir, we never forget we have no choice.
An absolutely brilliant piece. Personally, I won't touch them, but 3.26m obviously thought otherwise. It won't change my mind though.
Last edited by Avman; 12th Sep 2005 at 21:28.
Keeping Danny in Sandwiches
Join Date: May 1999
Location: UK
Age: 76
Posts: 1,294
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Good piece in the Sunday Telegraph 11th September, it wasn't at 36000ft, rather abandoned at Carcassone.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...11/wryan11.xml
It really is a joke to call them an airline. The passengers hired a bus to get home to Brussels.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...11/wryan11.xml
It really is a joke to call them an airline. The passengers hired a bus to get home to Brussels.
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Europe
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
What a joke.
Simply redicolous.
Unacceptable.
Sad. Illegal.
An offence to human rights, International Law and the basics of commercial relationships.
An aberration of progress.
An insult to human dignity and trust.
A joke airline.
Unacceptable.
Sad. Illegal.
An offence to human rights, International Law and the basics of commercial relationships.
An aberration of progress.
An insult to human dignity and trust.
A joke airline.
Eight Gun Fighter
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Western Approaches
Posts: 1,126
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Never flown with them and never will !!!!!! A joke of an airline.
I mean if you wanted a real joke, this would be it.
And I don't care about the supposed price before extraordinary surcharges.
I mean if you wanted a real joke, this would be it.
And I don't care about the supposed price before extraordinary surcharges.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: UK
Posts: 70
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
philip2004uk, I don't think you'll find that they sponsor this site but they probably do use it to advertise for pilots. Not everyone is a muppet with an anti-Ryanair fixation. 
Whilst it may be fashionable to jump on the "let's slag Ryanair" bandwagon just because MOL gets up your nose (like he cares) once he's gone off to enjoy his millions there will still be an airline employing a lot of pilots and needing a lot more.
Like Stelios before him, I think MOL enjoys some of the baiting that goes on here and loves all the free publicity. Some of you will never learn that there is no such thing as bad publicity... just publicity.
Lets hope that more airlines "sponsor" this site like Ryanair and easyJet do. At least it gives everyone a chance to make their point (when they actually have one) and anyone joining Ryanair is going in with their eyes wide open.
Whilst it may be fashionable to jump on the "let's slag Ryanair" bandwagon just because MOL gets up your nose (like he cares) once he's gone off to enjoy his millions there will still be an airline employing a lot of pilots and needing a lot more.
Like Stelios before him, I think MOL enjoys some of the baiting that goes on here and loves all the free publicity. Some of you will never learn that there is no such thing as bad publicity... just publicity.
Lets hope that more airlines "sponsor" this site like Ryanair and easyJet do. At least it gives everyone a chance to make their point (when they actually have one) and anyone joining Ryanair is going in with their eyes wide open.
Paxing All Over The World
Expose them for what they are
As to the comments of 'illegal' 'Unacceptable' and 'joke airline' then the answer is 'No'. They may be unacceptable to me and you but they are not illegal and certainly no joke. They are twisting the tale of EVERY airline in the world. No one is safe from the rot that they have started. So the joke is not on them.
I am faced with having to use them on a trip in January to fit in with a friend and I am hoping that I can find an alternative and - yes - I will pay more. I would rather pay more upfront than to be paying surcharges for being over the 15 or 17 kgs that MoL decides it's going to be this month.
As always in these threads, my heartiest congratulations to FR on getting people to dance to their tune..
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Essex
Age: 37
Posts: 220
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Say Mach Number, I completely agree with you. If Ryanair is supposedly the worst airline everyone has ever flown with then why do they continue to keep beating the biggest airlines in Europe. Of course, when you pay such a small amount for a ticket you cannot expect the best level of service. I have flown with them around 40 times and the only problem seems to be the scrum to get on the plane to board it (something I will put up with for such a cheap ticket). On the flight back from Gerona to Stansted this summer, there were a lot of BA passengers who's flights got cancelled.
The point I am getting at, and of course many people will disagree with me is, everyone loves to knock Ryanair. It seems the 'thing to do' to slag off the airline when they are the ones that continue to fly with them. How can you possilby turn down a ticket for £20 to the likes of Spain, France and Italy?
You could pay a lot more with BA at the moment and still not get any onboard food.
The point I am getting at, and of course many people will disagree with me is, everyone loves to knock Ryanair. It seems the 'thing to do' to slag off the airline when they are the ones that continue to fly with them. How can you possilby turn down a ticket for £20 to the likes of Spain, France and Italy?
You could pay a lot more with BA at the moment and still not get any onboard food.
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Up North
Posts: 14
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Beautifully written, but I can't fully agree. I've never had problems with Ryanair; they tend to leave on time, and get me to places in Europe that only five years ago were costly and difficult to get too. The staff might not always be too friendly (some are!), but at least they don't patronise you with fake BA-style insincerity. And although I've never been dumped by them in Carcassone, I haven't had to wait for my flight in a tent for three days eating sandwhiches while BA sort out (yet another) industrial dispute.
O'Leary is a contentious and inflammatory character, but without people like him who else would be buying new aircraft? His business style is disagreeable, but if you see the (less than modest) FR Headquarters in Dublin you realise that they're not wasting their cash on glass and chrome palaces. No car parks full of director's Bentley's, and hoards of unnecessary staff.
The flights I use to the South of France, Portugal and Sardinia are often full of students and young people and I welcome that. These people are becoming familiar with the concept of flying to get somewhere and will take that with them through their lives. They are often full of obviously affluent, educated cultured people too, so let's forget the idea that the low cost carriers are simply catering for 'the masses'.
Anyway, can someone name an airline that does look after passengers these days?
O'Leary is a contentious and inflammatory character, but without people like him who else would be buying new aircraft? His business style is disagreeable, but if you see the (less than modest) FR Headquarters in Dublin you realise that they're not wasting their cash on glass and chrome palaces. No car parks full of director's Bentley's, and hoards of unnecessary staff.
The flights I use to the South of France, Portugal and Sardinia are often full of students and young people and I welcome that. These people are becoming familiar with the concept of flying to get somewhere and will take that with them through their lives. They are often full of obviously affluent, educated cultured people too, so let's forget the idea that the low cost carriers are simply catering for 'the masses'.
Anyway, can someone name an airline that does look after passengers these days?
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Troon
Posts: 126
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Flown with FR on 38 return trips. 4 flights have been delayed the most by 60 minutes. Never paid more than £80 return (PIK - TRP) an got PIK - DUB for £14.99 return. New 737-800'S are good if a bit cramped (but have you tried a My Travel 757??). I have always found the crew helpful and cheerful although the scrummages at boarding time can be a bit tiresome. You basically get what you pay for so I have no complaints.
I must confess to actually liking MOL's brash style and his "couldn't give a ****" attitude. But then I don't work for him!!
I must confess to actually liking MOL's brash style and his "couldn't give a ****" attitude. But then I don't work for him!!
