Charge peanuts, get monkeys.

Every trip I have flown in retirement as a passenger on Ryan Air has been just fine.
I have been careful to abide by the rules and done everything on line and have never had any problems.
As a retired pilot I am comforted by my observations on boarding of the outside condition of their modern B737 fleet.
It is 100% less hassle for me to fly Ryan Air than to attempt to obtain my retirement travel tickets from Gulf Air.

i'm 100% behind FR here. It appears the students decided to be distruptive to delay departure re their pal with the overweight/over large bag. . People need to realise that this type of behaviour in an enclosed space is de facto mutiny and a cleaver needs to fall on this type of scenario for future ill conceived thoughts by others.

From FR site

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

100 Passengers Offloaded from Lanzarote - Charleroi flight
Ryanair today (5th Feb) confirmed that it had offloaded a group of 100 passengers travelling from Lanzarote to Brussels Charleroi on FR8175 at the request of Spanish Police. This group became disruptive, and refused to comply with crew instructions after a number of their group were required to pay a gate bag fee for outsized luggage.

Lanzarote police required the entire aircraft be offloaded, each passenger identified. Following further disruptive behaviour, the police required for security reasons that this enitre group be refused travel.

Ryanair apologises sincerely to the 66 remaining passengers who suffered a 3hr delay while Ryanair and the local police were dealing with this disruptive group. Ryanair's handling agent in Lanzarote will be reaccommodating some of this group on later flights to Charleroi but any individuals who engaged in disruptive behaviour or refused to follow crew instructions will not be allowed to fly.

The safety and security of Ryanair's passengers, crew and aircraft will remain Ryanair's number 1 priority

Cases of potential disruptive, violent or abusive passengers occur every day around the World. Passenger angst would appear to be on the increase, especially when flying on the good value "low cost" carriers
The difference between an incident turning from purely anecdotal, to a full blown media event, more often than not lies with the skill and experience of the cabin staff having to deal with it.
Just maybe some of these carriers need to spend more on teaching passenger handling skills, that, used correctly, could contain such situations.
Obviously, seriously drunk or drugged passengers are not able to listen to reason. In their case, 20 minutes at 30 deg C, with a cabin altitude of 6000' will send them up the wooden stairs to bedfordshire in no time at all, then the cabin can be bought back down to normal temperature again. Tried it and it does work!:ok:

T-21
Not forgetting British Caledonian.

I am now retired and travel by air as little as possible because it is such a gruesome experience.

I still am looking for any analysis to confirm my suspicion that the increase in passenger aggression is connected to the ban on smoking in recent times, which has progressively expanded from the cabin to embrace maybe the several prior hours, from entering the terminal. What proportion of the aggressors are smokers, compared to the overall passenger proportion of these.

Or non-drugged, for those used to nicotine.

You, me and an ever increasing disillusioned public. As transport costs inevitably rise and work-from-home technology rapidly improves, mass transport will become mainly a leisure associated occupation.

The only method of mass transport that still treatsd its customers like human beings are cruise ships.

Buses, trains and especially air transport treat their customers like cattle, so why are they surprised when the respond accordingly?

LOCos?
 

There is an underlying assumption running through this thread that LoCos like Ryanair are cheaper than legacy carriers. That is often the case for the single traveller who is computer savvy, travels light and is flexible about timings.
However, it is always worth checking the the websites of the classic carriers - having done your arithmetic carefully on the many ingenious but cumulatively expensive add-ons per sector of airlines like RYR.
Remember that British scheduled airlines give the total price upfront whereas the RYR basic can increase exponentially. The modern inability to do any kind of mental arithmetic helps them get away with it!
I have often found that BMI and BA can compete with or even undercut MoL on fares - and the experience is much more pleasurable!

Well, yes, except that of course Pax numbers continue to rise because RYR and co have made it possible for people to travel, who never could before.

Eevn five years ago, there is no way a bunch of Belgian students would have been able to fly 1500NM for a few days American-style "spring break". These are not people who are treated like cattle by airlines every day of the week; they're kids for whom the trip should have been something at least slightly special.

I'm getting on RYR in 6 hours time for a trip FKB-STN-FKB. Total cost, including the silly EUR 5 booking fee per segment: EUR 30, return, for a 24-hour trip to the UK. At that price I don't expect anything very special, and I know that if I turn up with two pieces of hand luggage, I will be hit hard. That's because I know that restricting the amount of hand luggage is one of the ways that they make it possible to have the flight at that price in the first place.

I fly RYR about 4-5 times per year and they've yet to let me down. Last time I went on Air France I spent 24 hours waiting for them to sort out a strike. No PAX compensation for strikes... even if it's the airline's own staff on strike. :ugh:

Indeed, I often find BA better than Flybe in terms of service and price to a particular destination. Ironically depending on where I fly from it is often Flybe who do the first leg, albeit booked direct with BA.

Kudos to the crew. Hope these savage passengers get taught a good lesson for disruption on board.
If they could use their tiny brains and realise when they booked that a condition of the airline providing travel is that they accept the terms and conditions fees etc laid out very plainly on the site.

I personally traveled 4 airlines in the past week. FR to Las Palmas excellent service, brand new aircraft, Spanair in R class to Madrid in a clapped out A320 Bad service crew dis interested and not attentive.
Air France another very old A320 to CDG. Crew totally uninterested and rude to say the least. 80 paxs squezzed into 15 rows, first 14 rows blocked off.
Austrian to VIE fabulous best airline Ive travelled with. And another Ryanair flight from Bratislava again fabulous service.

Glad to see most travel insurance won't pay these thugs a single cent which is the way it should be.

In passing, who argued the point for 'adult only' flights? Give me a screaming baby anytime.

You misunderstand me. I'm not popping off at RYR. When is comes to customer care the whole industry sucks.

As for increasing numbers - yes, but it will become a predominantly low cost (relative cost), low service, leisure only industry as we move into the future....with associated crap working pay and conditions for those in it.

BA are about to introduce CC charges (or maybe already have?), which won't be on the scale of the per sector per person ripoff practised by FR, but will add to cost.

Many of the OLTA's offer the same or better fares than the airlines' own websites and no CC charges, although whether introducing another link in the chain is smart or not is another argument.

Scotbill
 

Quote you 100%! Just booked a flight with a European flag carrier that ceme ou to be 100£ + cheaper than so called LoCos for same destination.
People do your maths, at times they are cheaper, sometines not!

BBC News - British Airways raises fuel surcharge by £12

BA increase fuel surcharge by another £12....................nuff said

Really? Not set foot on one myself, but seeing the crocodiles of punters herded on and off, rushed round the tackiest of grockle "attractions" onshore, made to queue at checkpoints to get back on the boat, ect ect, has put me off ever wanting to.

Congratulations on missiing the point by a country mile.

I share you view on cruise holidays...went on one once, didn't like it, mainly for the reasons you articulate.

However, the customer service was outstanding from start to finish - and my friends who cruise tell me it always is. I expect the airlines (and some trains) were much like this in times past.

Nowadays, unless you can afford business class or better, airline travel is the complete pits...whoever you fly with.

PS

I visited the Sistine Chapel on my cruise. I'm thinking Michel Angelo might have issues with that being described as a "tacky tourist attraction" :E:E

Thing is a lot of airlines now think they're in the "transportation" business but, in fact, in any long term business you're in the "people" business.

Much of good business, imho, is about fostering and maintaining good relationships with the customers.

Fireflybob

Nail firmly clouted