Copeland, you described the situation perfectly. My wife inadvertedly left a sculpture tool a few inches long, in her bag, which was found at GRO by security. They told her she was welcome to take it with her but added "you know it will be confiscated at Stansted on the way back". Since it was expensive, the friendly Guardia Civil allowed her to hand it back to me waiting to see her off.

Bags, foodstuffs, liquid etc., all at the discretion of the staff there, who are able to think for themselves, assess the situation, and make their own decisions. The first word of the next sentence would be "Unlike..." but I won't go on as it's from the School of the Bleedingly Obvious, as Basil Fawlty would have said.

New flavour of the Month: TGV from Perpignan to London via Paris. Much nicer !

Ry*n Air Passenger video
 

Any SLF in need to a good belly laugh, take a look at this thread on Jetblast.

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/4248...ger-video.html

For an even bigger belly laugh (I think not) read the weeping and wailing in both Catalan and local foreign-language magazines about Ryanair pulling out of Girona.

Having spent billions on GRO to bring it up to the standards required for dealing with 100 movements a day, and having "had blood squezed out of them in subsidies" (Arena, 21.8.2010) Girona City Council is aghast at Ryanair shifting many flights from GRO to BCN starting September 2010, and rumour has it that when Ryanair's contract ends in 2011 they will shift nearly all flights to BCN, leaving (and I quote from 'El Punt' 21.8.2010) Girona airport a "deserted ruin".

Ah well, Ryanair - the firm you can trust......Perpignan City Council, who turned down Ryanair's offer to make PPG their southern hub if they paid FR enough, must be laughing all over their faces (and other areas).

Copeland - They are pretty vindictive at both PIK and PMI. I had the 'pleasure' of using FR last week, for the first time in years - always used GSM, but they're sadly gone. They weigh your hand baggage at the gate at PIK, and the bottle of water you buy in the lounge gets flung, if you are so much as a gram over the 10kgs, or pay 35 quid to put the bag in the hold. Nice little earner MoL.
At PMI, I watched a family with 3 paid for hold bags of 14kg, 14kg and 16kg, have to move stuff from the 16kg bag to one of the 14 kg bags - how petty is that! I won't even start on what they did to the elderly couple, with the woman in the wheelchair, suffice to say she had to leave a bit of her disabled equipment behind to make the weight! :yuk:
When will airlines realise that their business downturn is not purely down to recession, ash clouds, credit crunch - people are sick of being treated like stupid cattle, suffering terrible customer service, and are making alternative, often more expensive travel arrangements than using airlines.

Totally agree Jaycee46, knocked RYR on the head ages ago due to their practices, here's another one- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-11138657

Perhaps if we all gave MOL the shove he would get the hint.

I agree, the RYR baggage pooling rules are totally stupid and unjusifiable. However, they are published and widely known so we should weigh our luggage at home and thus not fall foul of the rules. whether sensible or not. If you book RYR you know what you are, and are not going, to get!

Praise for Ryanair
 

Last Thursday, I flew for the first time with Ryanair. I was pleasantly surprised with the whole procedure. Our route was Alicante-Bristol.

We were delayed on take off, due to it being the first day of the French ATC strike.

When airborne I could not fault the flight Attendants who were pleasant and patient.

We were on course to land at Bristol but the pilot (who afterwards came on the PA system to tell us that the crosswinds were too strong) climbed out, and shortly afterward told us that we were diverting to Bournemouth where we landed a few minutes later.

Bournemouth was a nightmare, Police came on board and took off a young girl who had been caught smoking. From then on we were delayed by the police who took statements from the cabin crew ( this took 1/2 hour) and then we were allowed to refuel. The young girl was taken away by an escort of no less than 5 police.

The flight back to Bristol to was brief but succesfull.

Ryanair are to be congratulated, the police NOT.
:D

Actually to be fair to the police, they were called out, presumably by the crew, and so had to follow procedure which includes taking statements. We cannot expect the Police to attend and not follow up statements etc etc. Ok, it was only a smoker but that leads me to my next question. Was it really necassary to call the police? As crew i find it much more effective to explain why we don't allow smoking (especially in the toilets) and that I would be informing the captain. That normally does the trick unless something else happened on your flight.

So in actual fact, you could say the crew weren't the best at dealing with the situation and that the Police were only really doing their job.

It is illegal to smoke on an aircraft, call the police out, shows these people that it shouldn't be done. Ok having a word with them might work, but then others will see that they might be able to get away with having a quick fag and just get a ticking off from the crew!
The chances of the plane catching fire by a fag........... Slim ( but no less dangerous)
I'm a smoker myself, I know what it's like in the UK, 3 prior to the flight leaving there is know where to smoke, so I sympathise.

Patient passenger of the month!!
 

Peterpallet,
Let’s recap your first flight with Ryanair:
The flight was delayed on departure.
You were not able to land at your destination (Bristol) but landed at Bournemouth.
At Bournemouth you were further delayed by the Police having to deal with a non compliant passenger.
Eventually you made it to Bristol.
And you were pleased with this your first experience with Ryanair.
Amazing, I would like to nominate you as the most patient passenger of the month. I wish everybody was as flexible and understanding of the circumstances as you demonstrated yourself to be. None of the delays was Ryanair’s fault

I have to say, I've flown Ryanair several times now between Liverpool and Dublin, and have got nothing but praise for them. I appreciate I may have been spectacularly lucky, but I don't recall any significant delays, the planes are ok for such a short hop (including one which looked brand new), I've never had any issues with hand luggage, and the crew are always friendly enough (in fact much friendlier than I am on the 0630 flight...).
The thing with Ryanair is to remember it's all a big game. If you're prepared to play by their rules, regarding online check-in, not taking hold baggage etc, there's really nothing wrong with them. Ok, you get nothing for free, and it's not luxurious, but on a thirty-minute flight what do you want? When I was a kid the bus to the nearest town took 45 minutes, and you got nothing on that either.