Ryanair passenger charter - more lies!
 

I was just browsing the Ryanair website this evening and came across this statement in their passenger charter:

What an utter load of b******s!

As an ex FR employee, I can categorically state that they certainly do overbook! Up to 5% of the capacity, which means that the booked figure can be as high as 200. (based on the 737-800 configured for 189Y)

The staff are told to advise passengers who are denied boarding that either "a row of seats are unserviceable" or "we have to transport deportees" (which I guess is in keeping with the above statement). How do they get away with publishing this trash???

Ive got a dirty word and it begins with 'M'....... Media. Im sure they'd love it.

Funny but I had heard exactly the same thing, including the 'deportees' excuse.

According to one set of industry norms, Ryanair would be stupid not to overbook, if you have paid tuppence for your flight it's no big deal if you don't turn up.

I would love to know what their no-show rate is.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have any issues with their policies, and if they want to overbook, why not? Most of the other low-cos do! But to actually advertise that you're one of the only European carriers that don't overbook, when this is a blatant lie, is pretty poor!

Very high, the average is certainly in excess of 5%. Even when the flight is overbooked, they often manage to accept 5 or 6 standbys.

But, there will be the rare occasion when the majority of passengers turn up, and inevitably, some are denied carriage. To then lie about the reason, so that they can claim to be something that they aren't, is poor! :(

come on guys
 

as an Iata Ticketing Agent serving many Airlines they are alowed to overbook by 10% .So e.g 189 seater 19 overbooked very rare they all turn up .:ok:

Maybe Ryanair is good with their math, but i may be wrong... :ugh:

come on guys

The OP is not criticising the alleged overbooking practice, but rather the inconsistency between the published policy and the alleged reality.

If the allegation is true, then it is a dishonest business practice.

The definition of "overbooked":

If Ryanair are booking to anything beyond 189 (which they certainly are) then they are considered to be overselling/overbooking. Even if the statistics show that having to deny carriage is likely to be rare, it is still being practiced!

As I said before, my issue is not with the fact that they are overselling (they'd be mad not too). My gripe, is that they have the gall to stick up an advert which is a blatant lie ( with a clause which says "if the flight is overbooked it's because we're transporting deportees or there is a technical problem with some seats")!

Very interesting information TotalBeginner. If you wish to take action, then it is off to your local Trading Standards Office (part of the local Council) to start the ball rolling. The problems of doing that, you will already know.

You will have to spend time and money and, if you use FR regularly for your leisure travel, face the risk that they will decline to carry you (as they are entitled to do and not tell you why). But, crucially, you have to be able to prove that they overbook. That would mean providing documentary evidence.

There are other avenues available to you but only the legal one will have any effect. Don't tell the media to gain publicity as that will almost certainly be challenged by the company and they might try and take you to court. FR will be betting that the effort and money are more than you are prepared to give. Again, thanks for letting us know.

Whistleblowers Please!
 

You only have to read this forum and Skytrax for it to be blindingly obvious that Ryanair have a whole raft of dubious practices, not least of which is the determination to never have to refund a penny no matter what the circumstances are. What we need are a series of ex Ryanair employee's going to Tonight or Panorama with evidence of a systematic attempt to defraud or mislead passengers. Until they are exposed as doing this deliberately, rather than the compelling, but lacking in evidence, anecdotal stories nothing will get changed. In the US I am pretty sure there would have been a class action suit by now, particularly in the telephone scam of not allowing anyone to contact them and charging a fortune for their phone lines. Really we need legislation making it illegal for customers to have to pay a company to seek redress for complaints or grievances. It is outrageous for any company to charge customers for the priviledge of fixing problems (take note British Gas, Sky, Ryanair and other companies of dis-repute).

On the more general point about overbooking, there may be a justification for full service airlines overbooking. There is absolutely no excuse for low cost airlines doing it. A full service airline sells tickets which are fully refundable and changeable, which means that they are not able to tell which customers will show up or not as these tickets are effectively like bus tickets, allowing the passenger to take any flight they like. Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate to use past experience to manage loads and estimate total usage. These airlines also take care of the passenger who is then denied boarding for this reason.

Low cost airlines only allow you to travel on the actual flight itself, and you lose all the fare if you don't show up. Therefore, the seat has actually been sold, and it is tantamount to fraud to sell the seat again. There is no possibility that you could get on the flight, and they are in effect selling something they don't have. It would be fine to sell off "no shows" on a standby basis (similar to a theatre which sells "no show" seats after the curtain goes up); but it is totally wrong to book people for seats which don't exist, particularly as Ryanair is hostile, unco-operative and nasty to the customers who are affected. Sooner or later Ryanair will pay for this attitude to it;s customers, and it won't be long. I know many people who would rather pay £20 per sector more to go with Aer Lingus, Easyjet or BA than be abused by semi-literate morons.

jimworcs says 'It is outrageous for any company to charge customers for the priviledge of fixing problems (take note British Gas, Sky, Ryanair and other companies of dis-repute)'.
Include Aer Lingus in the above statement. Their Irish '0818' number is a premium one.
In America they use a '1800' freefone number. Why?
Also, in every European country except Sweden & Ireland, it is possible to contact them by email!
Why has AL decided not to give the same email facility to its Swedish and Irish customers?
If only AL realised it they could get a lot more customers back from the likes of the Ryanair's of the LCC world if they were more user friendly.
I think the time has come when many of us are prepared to pay a little extra for a more 'human' service and this includes AL providing all of its customers with a '1800' number for contact plus email.
Come on Aer Lingus - you can do it.

I've read the thread, and if anyone mentioned that the so-called "taxes" are not returned if you cancel or do not turn up, I missed it.

So the policy of overbooking, which of course FR has, is usually quite lucrative.

The only one of the taxes which is not just another charge by Ryanair (or any carrier) for the service(s) provided is the Government tax. This is a small proportion of the total amount added to an apparently cheap fare as "taxes".

The remainder are the airport's charges to the airline, not the passenger, for its services, and various additional charges dreamed up by increasingly imaginative locos. (Charges for:- Making a booking, Making the payment for it, Checking Baggage, Putting fuel into the Aircraft ("Surcharge"), Breathing etc etc).

Of these, it is illegal not to return to a passenger the Government Tax that is collected with the ticket price, in the event of cancellation or "no show". This money does not belong to the airline which collects it. It belongs either to the Government or to the passenger , and refusing to repay it amounts to theft.

The airlines get around this by charging a ridiculously exhorbitant "fee" for refunding the amount, which exceeds the actual tax. This is similar to the banks who charged outrageous fees and who are now faced with paying back millions. Unfortunately, there is little regulation and an incredibly ineffective regulator, so the chances of anything being done about this rip off are negligable.

Well maybe their statement should be revised to say 'generally' they don't overbook flights! I believe there are very few situations in which they do, certainly an extreme minority in terms of total flights.

And of the few situations where they do do it, you would be very very unluckly to actually be denied boarding, even at that you'll be put on another flight on the exact same route on the same day. Hardly that unreasonable in the overall scheme of things, and certainly not something I'd be getting too worked up about!

I'm afraid you believe wrong!

I agree that there are few occasions when it is necessary to deny boarding, but the majority of Ryanair's flights have a sale lid that is set in excess of the aircraft's capacity! If a flight isn't overbooked, it is purely due to the fact that these oversale fares have not been purchased. As somebody else has mentioned, Ryanair's yields department are not stupid and will endeavour to make good use of their high no-show rate.

Again, I'm not criticising Ryanair for overbooking, they just need to stop using this underhanded method of advertising!

Presumably you apply the same standards to other situations. You get much sought after tickets to a Madonna concert, when you get there you find that your seats have been sold twice, and sadly, normally 10% of people who book concert tickets don't turn up, but on this occassion that didn't happen. So here is a refund of the ticket price. I am quite impressed that you would shrug your shoulders and say oh well, hardly anything to get worked up about is it. C'est la vie. Bollocks.

heidelbergBecause they can get away with it! Countless large companies in the UK (and, it seems, Eire) changed to premium rates and everyone dialled them. One reason is because the telephone numbering scheme in the UK is a dogs dinner and allows misunderstanding. You may with to look at, and contribute to: www.saynoto0870.com

Because they have more customers there and the volume of emails will overload the numbers of staff that have been reduced to minimum to save money? Or am I just too cynical for my socks?

Unfortuantely, all too many want to pay as little as possible and everyone is chasing FR down the slide.

Would it be fair to make the observation;

'you have to be pretty stupid to believe anything Ryanair say' ??

I don't believe I do! What I'm saying is a very very small number of flights in proportion to the overall total are ever actually overbooked, whether the capability to do so is there or otherwise.

You would presume wrong unless we're talking specifically Madonna tickets in which case you would be right. Besides seats aren't over sold at concerts because they can't offer you a seat at another concert at the same venue by the same artist later that day. If they could, they probably would and it would be quite logical to do so.

Anyway the main point I suppose I'm making overall is that a chronic problem of overselling seats at Ryanair does not exist and you'd be very very unlucky to ever fall victim to it. Then even if you are that poor unfortunate sod, you'll still be travelling at some point that day, you'll never be left stranded at some remote airport overnight or anything. So sorry but I still won't be getting worked up about it anytime soon.

What if it happens at an airport where there is only one flight per day or, it's the last flight of the day? Ryanair won't re-accommodate you on another carrier, the word FIM doesn't exist in their vocabulary! :ugh: