Fodder for the Ryanair haters...

[BobnSpike]

...or for the "not very smart passenger" haters. Either way, please enjoy:

Ryanair boss flies off the handle over 'idiot' critic - Business News - Business - The Independent

[flexicrew]

It's LCC, and you're expecting..?
LCCs pounce on you at every opportune moments, wanna travel cheap then equip yourself with some basic knowledge.
Half a million haters? Get a grip, wait till you really get 30million hits on your facebook then probably the CEO twit may look your way and bow.

[captjns]

Another boring article. More free publicity for the little gnome. I don't see their doors closing in the immediate future.

[Skeleton]

In this case the gnome is right.

Its made quite clear on the website the fees involved.

End of.

[Tableview]

I fully agree with MoL - much as I despise his company's ethics and modus operandi. People have a choice, providing a foolproof way of not having such problems. It's one I made long ago, I don't fly Ryanair.

It's like going to the North Pole and then bitching that it's cold.

[Loose rivets]

Trouble is, the best laid plans of man etc.

I arrived at my London address, only to find the printer dried up. That was not in my plans. I was totally knackered and it was too late to do anything. Fortunately, I wasn't flying with Ryanair. As it happens, we also cleaned the heads, but that's not the point. If I'd been a dad with a large family, I'd have been stuffed, and a little help from someone you're sending money with would be appreciated. But no, people like that are just empty inside, so there's nothing you can do about them.

[Tableview]

Here's a little business opportuity for someone then, to set up a little bureau with a computer and a printer at the airports and offer to print peoples' boarding passes for say £5 a shot. That's a huge discount on the Ryanair price!

Ah, but I forgot, most airports have an internet cafe anyway, so it begs the question as to why people don't think of this simple solution.

[Dan Winterland]

These days, people often book flights, hotels and hire cars on their smart phones or tablets while on the move and they don't have a convenient printer to hand. I fell foul of this nonesense about a year ago when a hire car company demanded to see a printout, even though I had the agreement on my laptop and could show them the booking there and then. It was resolved by going next door and asking nicley if I could use their computer and printer. Needless to say, I won't be using this care hire company ever again.

Other airlines allow you to check in on line without printing anything. In this case, it's just another opprotunity to extract more cash from you. Five pounds I can believe is reasonable, but sixty? And I know the Ts and Cs are there to see and it's a case of "Caveat Emptor". Seems theres a lot to beware of with flying with Ryanair.

It makes me wonder how long their policy of "If you don't like it, then f#ck off!" will last. Seems that if this woman got so many people to agree with her, then this is a lot of people who are going to follow O'Leary's advice. And referring to your customers as "Idiots" just gives the impression you just don't care about them - which I'm sure he doesn't.

I don't like Ryanair's policy - I'm one of their ex-passengers who has taken the advice of their CEO and will always use their competitiors in preference. Thanks for the hint Mike!

[Tableview]

Seems that if this woman got so many people to agree with her, then this is a lot of people who are going to follow O'Leary's advice.

The irony is that most of those people will travel Ryanair because they think it's cheap and that they won't get caught out. But they will. Again and again. Human nature and greed. That's what he trades on, and that's why he's so succesful.

[Gulfstreamaviator]

Mr Ratner

He had a similar respect for his customers, and look what happened to him.

I do not agree that just because the small print advises of the death penalty for not having a print out, that it should be enforced.
Unfortunatly until such time as the passengers are shown some respect by MOL, then there will continue to be such issues with the Irish.

[Piloto2011]

As much as I dislike RYR from a pilot's / employee's point of view I have enjoyed them as a customer. It's cheap and simple to fly them if you just follow the rules. In fact, in some places like Spain you can even bend the rules to your advantage, i.e. more weight.

I hate to come to their defense but in the 100 plus times I have used them they were late only once, diverted only once but provided a free bus ride to original destination, and bumped me once for being late one minute for a snow storm. The latter was annoying indeed. Aside from that no problems at all.

In 2011, RYR had a pax volume of 72m, which is expected to grow again this year. The 500m Facebook like clicks that that unhappy woman has received are about .8 percent of the 72m folks O'Leary had flown in 2011. Don't think he cares that much.

[direct ortac]

There are laws in the UK to prevent "unreasonable" penalties in a contract. The UK banks know all too well about this when they were pulled up for charging 40+ quid for a letter. So my advice would be to explore this avenue. I am assuming UK law applies, which may not be correct.

I would not be surprised if this WAS a MOL stunt! But, hey, you have to admire the guy for what he has built.. love him or hate him, he has made the traditional boys sit up and pay attention.

I don't fly Ryanair as I have safety concerns. Nothing to do with the flying, it's the getting out that concerns me. Max. capacity with cabin crew that don't seem to have this as their 1st priority. I am sure all the regs are met but there is more to it than just ticking the boxes.

[DaveReidUK]

I don't have any problem with the principle of printing your own boarding card pass at home, or paying to have it done for you at the airport if you don't.

But if the latter, the charge should bear some relation to the actual cost, to Ryanair or the handling agent, of doing so - otherwise it's just a fine/penalty.

Yes, of course you are deemed to have agreed to the charge in your ticket contract/conditions of carriage, but contract terms still have to be fair and reasonable.

It would be fascinating to see this tested in a court of law.

[Sober Lark]

Biggest lie ever

Biggest lie ever: “I read & accept the terms of use of Ryanair's General Terms and Conditions of Carriage and website Terms of Use” ✔

[RAT 5]

There is a government investigation proposed into the whole aspect of credit card charges for making bookings in many industries. It is proposed that the charge should reflect the charge made by the CC companies to the provider, and not be a source of extra randomly decided profiteering. It seems this scope of customer rip off could be widened.
Add to this little story the one about RYR refusing to accept a boarding card PDF on a smart phone; unlike other customer orientated market leading airlines who encourage such an environmentally friendly procedure.

[DB6]

Ho ho ho. Just like watching the Jeremy Kyle show - which I also despise. As someone recently said, Pikeyair do us the favour of keeping the ****e off decent airlines. But that's all.

[hellsbrink]

There are laws in the UK to prevent "unreasonable" penalties in a contract. The UK banks know all too well about this when they were pulled up for charging 40+ quid for a letter. So my advice would be to explore this avenue. I am assuming UK law applies, which may not be correct.

Ryanair is an Irish company with it's HQ in Ireland and the "unreasonable" request to print off your own boarding pass or pay through the nose for it being printed off at the airport by Ryanair has already been challenged in Spanish courts where Ryanair "won" at the end of last year when they appealed an earlier decision where it was declared to be "abusive" as it had been "the customary practice over the years has been that the obligation to provide the boarding pass has always fallen on the airline". Unfortunately, "customary" is not necessarily "law" so, according to the appeal judge, surcharges for not printing off your own boarding pass are in compliance with international law and Ryanair were able to keep said clause in their T&C's.

Any attempt to challenge things in the UK would probably also fail, since we are looking at it being classed as being under Irish law, so if you don't like the potential surcharges the, don't fly O'LearyAir.

[Teddy Robinson]

Shrek

diverging slightly ... there is a certain character in one of my daughters DVD's that has an uncanny resemblance to somebody .. I can't quite pin it down.
It was something about sign here .....

[robfahy]

I don't think most people would have the option to print-out a boarding pass at the airport as you cannot print it out within four hours of the flight...

Passengers can check-in online from 15 days up to 4 hours before each scheduled flight departure time.

[The SSK]

I think it's pretty good going for MoL - rip this woman off to the tune of £300 for five scraps of paper, then publicly humiliate her for being stupid enough to get herself ripped off.

Does Ryanair still claim Southwest as its role model? Thankfully Herb Kelleher doesn't have a grave, otherwise he'd be spinning in it.