All in all the longest TV advert for Ryanair ever.
The program makers couldnt dig any dirt so they just kept pointing out
LOW FARES, NEW AIRCRAFT, 2P FLIGHTS and many more posative points
well done the BBC and I bet MOL is loving the free Advert.

Very good free advertising for Ryanair. I imagine MO'L will be delighted with the programme!

You did :)

Even if you are rostered 6 sectors after the first 2 you get new weather and NOTAMS delivered to the aircraft hence you check them there and then.

If I am rostered base to DUB and return then base to Faro I won't even look at the Faro weather until I get back from DUB: no point as everything will change.

And as for NOTAMS - turned up for work to find Prague had NOTAM'd the airport closed: phoned Ops, asked them to check. The response from Prague was......we are open. Why NOTAM a closure then?

Not necessarily: it depends on what you want from an airline. As far as I was concerned, the programme just made me thankful that I can afford not ever to have to fly with Ryanair.

This was very much "new" Panorama - lightweight and rather insubstantial, and told us little, if anything, we did not already know.

Methinks the 'agenda' was delicately subtle and concerns planting the seeds of doubt.

I wonder how much O'Leary paid them for this advertising. He must be laughing all the way to the bank. If this is aggressive investigative journalism, my pussycat could do better, or as Denis Healey said of Sir Geoffrey Howe : "this was like being savaged by a dead sheep." O'Leary turned every word and phrase to his advantage and comes across as smart, affable, and ebullient. I still wouldn't fly on his airline, but I'm sure he has earned the respect of most people who saw the programme. The BBC should be ashamed of itself.

This interview was also interesting :
BBC - Panorama - Uncut: Ryanair's Michael O'Leary

Re the pilot (but represented by an actor) comment about check in 45 min before departure for a 6 sector day - couple of points for the non cognoscente:
Almost everyone I know arrives in briefing before their 'on duty' check in time. Makes for a relaxed operation. I will refrain from comment upon whether I think STD -45 is a REASONABLE time to come on duty. :rolleyes:
Used to fly 6 sector days around Scotland in the winter in BEA. That was when some of the independent boys were saying we didn't work. :hmm:

True, but you can walk out of a Pound shop and you're back on the street again. I don't fancy my chances going down in the ocean and relying for my evacuation on staff whose primary onboard role (roll?) is the retailing of sandwiches! ;)

Everyone has their own reasons why they love or hate Ryanair. Personally I'd never fly with them out of principle, for many reasons that are not worth going into on here as this subject's been done to death already.

If others do, then good luck to them and I wish them every happiness on their travels. It's just not for me, that's all.

Quote FR website

Ryanair - Notice : Infamy infamy - Panorama has it infamy!

There were a few bits and pieces for the ryanair hater in there, but on the whole I thought Ryanair came across pretty well. I was surprised by this and have to agree that MOL will be very happy with the programme. Any advertising is good advertising for MOL and Ryanair got a whopping half an hour of it tonight.

I thought the programme was balanced but very lightweight on both sides of the argument.

As far as the bbc is concerned well it was stated that Panorama were seeking to find out "what makes ryanair such a successful business." Well as MOL says its not rocket science so do we really need 'investigative journalists' to waste our money on trying to find out when a quick look at wikipedia will tell you everything we saw tonight.

If the BBC wants to spend our money on revealing dubious behaviour, their reporter of their 'Inside Out' prog in the North East and Cumbria has done far better than the FR reporter:

Cat registered as hypnotherapist
The regulation of hypnotherapists in the UK is so lax that even a cat can become accredited, the BBC has found.Chris Jackson, presenter of Inside Out in the North East and Cumbria, registered pet George with three industry bodies.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cat registered as hypnotherapist

Ryanair - oh the horror, the pain!
 

I just came home from work, dead curious about this Panorama thing, i asked Mr ATS to record it for me.
So.... Let me get this right. There were no safety issues nor punctuality. Re the STN incident, it wasn't all RYR's fault. Not many people know this but pax lost flights also because the security channels that day went all wrong. The airport could be at blame for that one too.
The CC who said "we're just a number to them". Yes we are, and if you do your job right, your number won't be up! Sales wise, you go in, set your trolley up, do your best and you'll get the job done. You get pushed to sell, so what? Why are people so bothered about this? It's our commission at the end of the day. Last month i topped my wages up with £320 commission thank you very much. The other day I walked into NEXT, and from the door to the first clothes rail thingy i must've been stopped by 4 girls asking "hi, you alright, do you need any help?" Yes it bloody annoyed me, I am perfectly capable of choosing and buying my own clothes thank you very much. But! Did i complain about it? No, I smiled and said no thank you.
As an advice to fellow CC, I tend to treat ALL pax as "mistery pax". That way no one can say to me "you haven't tried hard enough". :ugh: Come to think of it, how many people work 30hrs a week tops and get lots of money for it? It's like having a part time job with full time wages!
Oh dear oh dear, 45mins is not enough for pilots to do their briefings. Ok, so how many safety related incidents happened because of that? Oh, that's right, none. Zero. Nada.
Ryanair has the worst customer service... Please don't tar everyone with the same brush. I'll go above and beyond to be there for you. But don't take the michael. Don't treat me like dirt. Don't blame me for a bad morning and that stupid parking fee you had to pay. Don't you think for a second that the security queue was my fault. Just don't...
Ok ok, i said it before and i'll say it again, there are bad eggs in every basket and god knows we do have some bad eggs. Just SOME, bud sadly it only takes a few to think everyone else is exactly the same...
Well this was a great amusement (for the whole 30 mins). Conclusion? FR is still cheap to fly with, there are still 2p flights going round, "hidden charges" are actually in the T&C's (have a read if you don't believe me); FR is a business. Business' make money. By any means. Simple as that.

As for the BBC, i expect a full refund of the TV License we (and you) pay. They moaned about cheap, no frills FR. Well dear "journalists", those 30mins were "cheap, no frills" journalism. Great free advertising tho! :ok:

I just remembered the bit with " £5 fee to print your boarding card using your own pc, printer, electricity"

A friend of mine is getting divorced. She can't afford a solicitor so she uses one of those websites specialized in divorce, specialized in divorce documents and procedures to be more precise. She pays about £30 per drafted document. The company e-mails her the drafted documents and she sends them to court. Nothing else.
So, because she obviously doesn't know how to write the said documents herself, she pays someone else to do it for her. And all she does is printing them off, using her own pc, printer and electricity.
So with the £5 fee for printing your boarding pass using your own stated above, it's exactly the same thing as my friends' divorce documents. When pax will know how to draft (write) their own boarding pass, then fair enough, the £5 fee is out of order. Until then, i see no other option than to pay the fee and enjoy your holiday/ short break/ business trip

:ok:

Abusing_the_sky,

I think you kinda lost it a little there with the second post but the first one wasnt too bad.

At this stage everybody knows what you get when you book a Ryanair flight. It has been in the news, in the papers and on sites like this telling everybody. Its like anything i buy, if they suit my travel needs i will fly with them. I wont travel on a weeks holiday with them due to there bag charges but EI are coming a close second with them charge wise but they do give you 5 KG's more but charge more as well.

People can come on here and say how bad they are or how great they are but at the end of the day if the flight is cheap enough i will buy it. A friend of mine is going to Cork from Dublin and the train will cost him 55Euro one way or a return flight with the Ryans is 12 Euro incl taxes and charges but no a bag. Thats cheap, thats the model and that works like it or not.

TopJock

The trains should be cheaper. Why does it cost over £100 return, Nottingham to London, when I can fly FR EMA to Berlin or Alicante for less?

Maybe if the train companies adopted a similar loco model it would get people to use them instead of their cars.

I wonder if MOL is on this forum. :)

I have no idea why they are not cheaper, at least you get legroom, a nice drink and sambo on them

I'm listening to the uncut doorstep interview (on BBC website via Ryanair's) as I write............hilarious.....................game set and match to MOL!

Especially the last few minutes about the Beeb wasting their TV Tax money on flying over on BMI. Brilliant.

As for the poor idiot of a presenter who wasn't allowed to agree to an uncut interview for inclusion in the Panorama programme, why on earth did they waste any money at all on the whole team showing up outside the White House and door-stepping MOL for him to say again "the interview must be uncut" and then get in 10 minutes of fabulous publicity.

An uncut interview is a perfectly reasonable demand from someone who knows how little Panorama cares for the facts that might spoil a good story.

What the hell did the prat mean by "hidden" charges? That's the last thing they are. I guess he meant "extra" charges, but what a stupid use of language.

TR Slim ShadyTopJockThe trains have 100 years of historical expense and infrastructure as, with varying years, do the legacy airlines.

The trains (through various companies) have to pay for:

• Every inch of track they run on
• The land beneath the tracks
• The land either side of the tracks for (I think) 2m
• Any trees that overhang the tracks they pay to have them pruned (or is that PPRuNed???)
• Maintenance and ownership of the tunnels through which they run
• Maintenance and ownership of the bridges over which they run
• Some countries recover these costs from the pax via the taxpayer and some directly from the pax

Once an aircraft leaves the ground, it runs for 'free' through the air bearing only it's own costs - not that of the air around it that supports it's very flight. Naturally, there are overflying costs and ATC costs but these are in a different league to owning and paying for every cubic inch of the air!

MoL would not run a train service because the legacy costs are too great.

But you're comparing the full-price, flexible train fare with a restricted, advance-purchase air fare. Not a fair comparison at all.

Britain's railways do operate a low-cost model. If I want to travel from London to Cardiff, for example, I can do so for around £27 return if I book in advance and specify the train on which I want to travel (but the fare will rise as the cheapest seats sell out). If I'm able to accept some restrictions then I would pay between £60 and £80, and if I want to be completely flexible and travel at peak times I would pay about £160. That is exactly how low-cost airlines work.

For your specific example, the lowest, restricted train fare between Nottingham and London is £18 return - a far cry from the £100 you claim.