RYANAIR standard

[ATC Watcher]

A good friend of mine used Ryanair for the first time yesterday ( on a business trip to Gerona) and came with the following story :

Brand new 737NG .Security announcements made by pre-recorded messages but inaudible . English of FAs with strong accents ,very difficult to understand and unfriendly.
When ordering drinks the FAs all said they were not allowed by " company rules "to give back change , so keeping 10 euros notes for 5,50 drinks. That part of English was understandable.
What was in perfect English and in good quality audio in the PA however, was the (long) offer to win 1 million pounds buying lottery tickets.
My friend asked me if this was a one-off bad luck flight or the common standard nowadays in the LoCo business ?

Anyone dares to answer ?
(I haven't used RYR for some time , and the last time I did, it was OK with none of the above )

[johnref]

Not standard.

On a recent flight an attendant came back to me after 10 mins with €0.10 even though I had told him to forget about it.
yes announcements are recorded - so what, and yes heavily accented crew - but if anything I have never heard as many Eastern Europeans with Dublin accents as I have recently on Ryanair flights.

[chrism20]

Certainly not standard, travelled with them last week and got change from my purchases.

Foriegn crew appear on all airlines, just FR seem tohave a far higher percentage of them than their competitors

[Grass strip basher]

See my post yesterday.... this outfit has very mixed standards of both airmanship and also in terms of social/corporate responsibility..... your story does not surprise me at all... any airline that thinks it is acceptable to leave an old lady in a wheel chair to sleep in a terminal building overnight must be going wrong somewhere

[Skipness One Echo]

I fly Ryanair a lot as they are the only option into Prestwick so I know that they are going to have surly Eastern European cabin crew and a guy on the flight deck from God only knows where and I know never to pay for anything on board and never to buy a crappy scratchcard.
Is it legal to offer goods for sale and make no attempt to offer change?
Yes they are a cheapskate, lowest common denominator outfit with no class whatsoever but they are bearable on a short domestic flight. However if you fly beyond that with them - God help you. ( Oddly enough I enjoy BA all the more these days because of the comparison.)
My short lived joy at the Irish captain flying DUB-STN in April was cut short as I realised the English of the cabin crew was barely bog standard Warsaw and the first officer was from Italy. No charm......

[Hirsutesme]

I used to fly with them a lot. Now I never do...even if I have to pay double, or treble.

[finding_nema]

The problem is people still have a mentality that when they fly they should get Clipper Class treatment. For what passengers pay to travel with Ryanair, I've always found the service to be perfectly reasonable. I get to my destination on-time, with my bags, on a fairly new aircraft with decent legroom, usually with polite if not overwhelmingly friendly crews. I don't really expect much more when I've paid £60 return to fly to Europe. I'm happy to pay to check-in a bag, get on the plane first or have something to eat or drink on the plane. So what if the interior of the plane looks and sounds like a metro car, if I'm flying to Europe as such cheap prices, I don't really care.

[Avman]

finding_nema says:

So what if the interior of the plane looks and sounds like a metro car

If safety related P/As are inaudible, that's a major SAFETY concern. In the event of no P/A and passengers having to follow instructions issued by cabin personnel who are unable to express themselves coherently in English, that's a SAFETY concern. Not willing to give change stating that it's company policy is simply a lie, fraudulent and illegal. This, finding_nema, should not happen on any carrier, whether paying £60 or £600.

[DONTTELLTHEPAX]

I have never had any problem understanding any Ryanair announcement.
If I had to get out of any Airlines aircraft I would and quick no
amount of announcements will speed up my exit.

I have never had any problems what so ever with Ryanair that is worth talking about, good Airline, good value for money, good Aircraft,
good crew, Good O/T peformance, Good website and good prices.

And good Legroom.

[Hotel Tango]

Well bully for you DTTP. Tell me, is the pay of RYR PR Manager good?

There are RYR bashers, and then there's you. Both as blinkered

[RichT]

It wouldn't matter if the PAs were in 1950s BBC English, the pax never listen to them. I bet if you took 100 people that have never flown (to standardise the sample) give them a PA on an aircraft then 10 mins later simulate a decompression many would not get the O2 flowing. It p155es me off when I travel as a pax and see so many people not even glancing up from their newspapers during the safety PA. Then its the same that whinge about bloody foreign crew I can't understand them. Well news flash its a tape "the bloody foreign crew" don't give the PA and it's in English and the language of the departure country.

[10secondsurvey]

As regards the original point made, I think it is extremely worrying that the relevant staff are not able to be understood in English. In the event of an emergency, the instructions from cabin crew ARE important, for example to not use overwing exits in event of engine fire or smoke.

This is a safety issue, and really does need brought to attention. It is unacceptable regardles of the airline or the fare paid. If it were BA, I would feel the same.

My own personal opinion on this is that in the event is the Sh*t hitting the fan when I am on a flight, I would much rather have a flight/cabin crew with professional standards and considerable experience. In particular I would want those on the flight deck to have much more than the basic legally acceptable minimum training. This is why I do not fly Ryanair, and never will.

To explain further, if you were hiring a chauffer for your car, would you choose a newly qualified driver, who passed their test yesterday and is therefore legally qualified to drive your car, or would you look for someone with a license AND lots of experience driving cars over several years beyond their training?

[RichT]

So 10secondsurvey who do you fly with and how do they respond when you interview the Capt & Fo to find out how many hours flying they have. Do you believe for one minute that other airlines only employ old experienced crews that need no training. Where do they find such a supply of ready made pilots.

[slim_slag]

Originally Posted by 10secondsurvey

In particular I would want those on the flight deck to have much more than the basic legally acceptable minimum training. This is why I do not fly Ryanair, and never will.

All European airlines take minimum hour recruits when there is a shortage of pilots, such as there is now. They get them cheaper that way. It's the nature of the business, pilots have to pay for their own training nowadays so they all go for airline jobs at the earliest opportunity. If you want guaranteed very experienced first officers you should only be flying American majors.

So much nonsense talked about safety on this site.

[SXB]

To explain further, if you were hiring a chauffer for your car, would you choose a newly qualified driver, who passed their test yesterday and is therefore legally qualified to drive your car, or would you look for someone with a license AND lots of experience driving cars over several years beyond their training?

That's a fair point though it can be argued that the most important duties of a flight attendant, the safety aspects, are something that can be taught in a very short period of time (like a couple of weeks) and those skills will probably not improve throughout their entire career, after all, an emergency happens so seldom that their skills in that area are largely untested.

The other part of their job is based around their customer service skills and this is something that will improve as they become more experienced, especially if their employers invest in appropriate training, as all good employers do. Hence, a FA with 15 years experience is a valuble employee, likely to be experienced in all areas of customer service. The catch for the employer is that, firstly, they have to pay them considerably more than a 20 year old with no experience and they have to fund their training.

Of course this is another area where RYR are able to cut costs, they get FAs to pay for their own training and target those with little or no experience or those living in a low cost market, like eastern Europe. This means they end up with staff in their early twenties normally staying less than two years, this appears to be a purposeful policy because it's cheap. Often, this is reflected in the quality of their services.

For the question of English, yes, if they are serving the UK market it would seem prudent commercial sense to ensure their English is fluent, after all, the Brits don't exactly lead the world in their knowledge of other languages, nor are they particularly tolerant of someone who speaks less than perfect English.

[J-Man]

Dont know whether its been brought up before, but i checked under my seat during the flights to and from dublin and there wernt any lifejackets under our row at all. I know chances of surviving in a crash on water are pretty much zero but isnt this a safety infringement?

[SXB]

Jman
Just out of interest did you listen to the safety demonstration ? maybe they were stowed elsewhere....

[chrism20]

I'm pretty sure that the life vests on FR's B738's are stowed above alongside the oxygen masks.

[FlyingV]

Originally Posted by J-Man

Dont know whether its been brought up before, but i checked under my seat during the flights to and from dublin and there wernt any lifejackets under our row at all. I know chances of surviving in a crash on water are pretty much zero but isnt this a safety infringement?

They're over your head. You weren't listening to the safety PA and you didn't look at the safety card in front of you.

In my Ryanair experience (roughly a return flight per month), the safety PA is a recorded announcement in English with an English accent, so no excuse to blame the E.European crew if you didn't understand it.

FR cabin crew English is good enough to sell scratch cards & drinks so it's good enough to shout what door to use in an emergency.

And they do give change. I see it all the time (although I've never ever bought anything during a flight!) My guess is they mightn't give Sterling change for a Euro purchase or vice-versa. Which would be reasonable.

[Big Harvey]

I've flown with them several times, never paying more than a pittance plus taxes for the privilege of being flown thousands of miles, so I can't complain really.

I would never describe a Riot Air flight as being fun. Conditions are spartan and the Riot-Air experience, from the long queues at check-in, to the scrum at boarding time, to the non-reclining seats with no legroom, to the staff constantly trying to flog you stuff you don't want, can sometimes border on the hellish.

However, once you're at your destination, you have the satisfaction of knowing you've got somewhere you'd probably have never even thought of visiting for next to nothing.

Tips for flying with Riot Air:

1) Take only hand luggage. They allow you up to 10kg. I have toured around India for several weeks with less luggage than that! If you're going somewhere cold, so need to take more clothes, wear your heaviest layers of clothing until you check in and clear security. That way you can stretch your hand luggage allowance even further!
2) Eat and drink before you fly, so you don't need to buy anything on board the aircraft.
3) If you make a lot of trips abroad, buy an annual travel insurance policy elsewhere, not the individual policy offered by the airline at the time of booking.
4) Expect low standards of customer service and hard landings. That way, your experience will not come as a shock.
5) If your journey is for business purposes, tell your boss not to be such a cheapskate, and put you on either a proper airline or even a train instead!

At best, Riot Air is probably the nearest you will ever come to getting something for nothing, but I doubt I would ever choose them if I had a choice and they were charging anything like a normal fare.