Ryanair named 'worst short-haul airline'
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OK, fair enough Eutychus, but Air France is an exception and I have to say that it's also an airline I avoid like the plague (There are others too). Remember that on this thread we are talking about service and not safety. As far as safety is concerned I have never doubted that Ryanair is as safe as any other European carrier. That's never been an issue for me not flying with them.
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Having used many well established legacy airlines for more than 30 years,i can say,my flights with Ryanair have always been great value for money.
I have always departed and arrived on time,or early,travelled on a nearly new aeroplane and paid a fraction of the price charged by the major airlines.
It's not First or business class,but doesn't claim to be.
Flying all over Europe for the equivalent of a tank of petrol has to be amazing value for money.
Before condemning this operation,take stock of the fantastic savings it offers to Joe public.
Sitting bolt upright,eating a Boots meal deal and arriving in the Balearics 2 hours after you left the Uk for £70 return or thereabouts,is pretty good by any standards.
I have always departed and arrived on time,or early,travelled on a nearly new aeroplane and paid a fraction of the price charged by the major airlines.
It's not First or business class,but doesn't claim to be.
Flying all over Europe for the equivalent of a tank of petrol has to be amazing value for money.
Before condemning this operation,take stock of the fantastic savings it offers to Joe public.
Sitting bolt upright,eating a Boots meal deal and arriving in the Balearics 2 hours after you left the Uk for £70 return or thereabouts,is pretty good by any standards.
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Flying all over Europe for the equivalent of a tank of petrol has to be amazing value for money.
Before condemning this operation,take stock of the fantastic savings it offers to Joe public.
Sitting bolt upright,eating a Boots meal deal and arriving in the Balearics 2 hours after you left the Uk for £70 return or thereabouts,is pretty good by any standards.
Before condemning this operation,take stock of the fantastic savings it offers to Joe public.
Sitting bolt upright,eating a Boots meal deal and arriving in the Balearics 2 hours after you left the Uk for £70 return or thereabouts,is pretty good by any standards.
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I'm not sure why Air France gets singled out. I have little choice where I live but to fly with them regularly if I want a connecting flight to my local airport; most of the time, the service is fine. It's when things go wrong that the service falls apart. When it has done, it has done so more spectacularly than Ryanair. I'm not convinced Ryanair's bad rep is deserved; I'm also not convinced other carriers do any better when things go wrong.
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Ryan air is responsible for the extreme poor T&C for aircrew personel in Europe. Every person who is working in the aviaton industry should despise them. Feel sorry for the people working for them!
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If you’re implying Ryanair pilots are poorly paid, I offer you this. I earned around £120k as a TRE working 5on 4 off ten years ago as a bog standard TRE. If people know what the salary is before they sign up, and they bloody well should, whether pilots or cabin crew, then they are idiots if they then complain about how much they earn. Money wasn’t a particular issue for any that I’m aware of.
The other side of this story is our consumption habits, everything has to be cheap. And there should be lots of it. But that may be too far of a digression to be considered in a thread which is about quality of an airline.
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I'm also not convinced other carriers do any better when things go wrong.
If only you could learn how to quote, then we'd know what post(er) you were referring to ...
I am sorry I cannot resist anymore, and don't take this personally. But boy.. what a manifistation of the cheap kind of spiecies we are. When you buy your £4 T-shirt from H&M do you pay any thought to the seamstress half an orbit away? There is a reason they're cheap. "Good value for the money".
I dislike FR for other reasons, but moving plenty of people across the EU for a very low price is not a bad thing, in my opinion.
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I wasn't particularly implying pilots are poorly paid. Though cabin crew may very well end up being paid below a liveable wage, at least for any length of time. I have been contracting my services to Ryanair, I know the game. I never complained about my net salary. But I did observe an employment setup that put the money first and not the people. And that includes self-centered pilots with a sense of entitlement. I think you personally had a medical encounter while in Ryanair? And the treatment you recieved was second to none - which is great, exactly how it should be. Possibly because of the same reason you earned £120 000. You were something to them, the majority is not. Most crew are treated the same way as passengers are treated when things go awry - with contempt. You become a burden, not an asset.
The other side of this story is our consumption habits, everything has to be cheap. And there should be lots of it. But that may be too far of a digression to be considered in a thread which is about quality of an airline.
I now consider Ryanair family, though I rarely communicate with them. I am so grateful for their kindness, and it was kindness. They had no reason to treat me as special, but that’s how I feel.
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The problem might come when Joe Cheapskate wants to pay pennies but still expects the royal treatment, but that's another topic.
The UK CAA's letter after the " rostering mishap" that had them cancel 18 000 flights: https://www.caa.co.uk/uploadedFiles/...r%20270917.pdf
But as usual, I guess no penalty was ever enforced. I think they could get away with murder.
As for no penalty enforced, that is the responsibility of the judicial system, not FR.
You name the national carrier you had a bad experience with first! It is not an absolute, but, in this part of the world, you are more likely to be left in the lurch with RYR than any other carrier. This doesn't come from personal experience (never use them) but that of an ATC friend who (now WAS) a regular user. After three bad experiences costing him €€€ in additional expenses he finally gave up on them.
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The market seems to agree, despite our opinions about him. Everyone loves to slam FR but everyone keeps using them.
As for no penalty enforced, that is the responsibility of the judicial system, not FR.
As for no penalty enforced, that is the responsibility of the judicial system, not FR.
I was simply venting my own thoughts on Ryanair for all their apologists to listen to - which I did not myself believe would be very popular. It's become some God's given right to fly cheaply around the globe, without second thought to the consequences. Be it social or environmental. With the demise of several airlines this year, financial troubles for others and strike action by airport handlers around Europe as well as Ryanair I wonder if the lemon has been squeezed a bit too hard.
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People's complaints about Ryanair seem to be similar to those that various humorists have made about an unloved restaurant.
The food is lousy and the portions are so small
or
Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.
The food is lousy and the portions are so small
or
Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.
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To expand the thread a little, not sure if this is common in Europe but here's the latest Loco development in these parts.
Jetstar is the loco arm of Qantas. They now have a scheme where they weigh all cabin baggage at the gate. It's a beautiful 2 person routine. Person 1 goes with mobile scales along the boarding line and weighs cabin baggage. Anything over 7kgs the passenger is told - "go see the gate agent over there, you'll need to check that bag in" Then the passenger wanders nonchalantly to the gate agent who writes out a baggage tag and then says, that will be 60 dollars please - about 30 quid. Here's where the fun starts as dismay creeps in across the passenger's face. "But I checked a bag in already" - "Too bad - you should have put all of your excess stuff in there" Last person I saw this week said it was nothing short of daylight robbery to which the gate agent suggested he should find another airline to fly with.
I get why this is done and in many ways support it. I've been dismayed at the growing number of passengers who bring on board a 20 kgs wheelie bag, plus a computer case, plus a massive handbag overflowing with all kinds of stuff. But the way it's been done with this airline leaves a bit to be desired. Yes the website says limit your cabin bag to 7kgs, if you buy checked in baggage at the airport it will cost you big time - but for a long time it was never enforced or policed. It's the change which has caught people on the hop and I wonder how many people will vote with their feet. If not already, how long before the legacy carriers emulate this revenue earning scheme ??
Jetstar is the loco arm of Qantas. They now have a scheme where they weigh all cabin baggage at the gate. It's a beautiful 2 person routine. Person 1 goes with mobile scales along the boarding line and weighs cabin baggage. Anything over 7kgs the passenger is told - "go see the gate agent over there, you'll need to check that bag in" Then the passenger wanders nonchalantly to the gate agent who writes out a baggage tag and then says, that will be 60 dollars please - about 30 quid. Here's where the fun starts as dismay creeps in across the passenger's face. "But I checked a bag in already" - "Too bad - you should have put all of your excess stuff in there" Last person I saw this week said it was nothing short of daylight robbery to which the gate agent suggested he should find another airline to fly with.
I get why this is done and in many ways support it. I've been dismayed at the growing number of passengers who bring on board a 20 kgs wheelie bag, plus a computer case, plus a massive handbag overflowing with all kinds of stuff. But the way it's been done with this airline leaves a bit to be desired. Yes the website says limit your cabin bag to 7kgs, if you buy checked in baggage at the airport it will cost you big time - but for a long time it was never enforced or policed. It's the change which has caught people on the hop and I wonder how many people will vote with their feet. If not already, how long before the legacy carriers emulate this revenue earning scheme ??
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Passengers on diverted Ryanair flight forced to catch bus 770km to Greece
Passengers on diverted Ryanair flight forced to catch bus 770km to Greece
For about 200 passengers, the flight from London, UK to Thessaloniki in northern Greece took almost 24 hours.
Foggy conditions in Thessaloniki airport led Ryanair to divert the flight from London Stansted Airport to the city of Timisoara in western Romania, late Friday (local time).
Many passengers, already grumbling that the diversion was not made to an airport closer to their destination were outraged when the company offered buses to take them the 770kilometre distance in freezing weather.
Ryanair has scheduled flights to Timisoara, as well as Athens, Greece, and some passengers felt that the decision to divert to the Romanian city was made on the basis of minimising costs.
"They could have landed us at a Greek airport," flight passenger Sakis Papadopoulos, 36, said.
"Our flight was already delayed and then, around 10.30pm (Friday), they informed us we would be landing at Timisoara instead of Thessaloniki," Papadopoulos said.
A total of 89 refused to take up the offer of buses, despite what they said was pressure from airport authorities, who kept them in the baggage area overnight.
Papadopoulos, who had travelled to London for the holidays, said that the passengers were finally offered a hotel stay at 8am Saturday but they refused, saying they would stay put until a plane arrived to take them to Greece.
"Some of us contacted Greek media," Papadopoulos said.
Informed of the passengers' plight, the Greek government arranged with Greek carrier Aegean Airlines to send a plane to Timisoara. Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis weighed in against what he said were "low cost, low social responsibility" airlines.
The 89 passengers arrived in Thessaloniki around 5pm Saturday. The flight normally would have taken around 3.5 hours.
Ryanair issued an apology for the diversion, saying that it was "beyond our control".
Foggy conditions in Thessaloniki airport led Ryanair to divert the flight from London Stansted Airport to the city of Timisoara in western Romania, late Friday (local time).
Many passengers, already grumbling that the diversion was not made to an airport closer to their destination were outraged when the company offered buses to take them the 770kilometre distance in freezing weather.
Ryanair has scheduled flights to Timisoara, as well as Athens, Greece, and some passengers felt that the decision to divert to the Romanian city was made on the basis of minimising costs.
"They could have landed us at a Greek airport," flight passenger Sakis Papadopoulos, 36, said.
"Our flight was already delayed and then, around 10.30pm (Friday), they informed us we would be landing at Timisoara instead of Thessaloniki," Papadopoulos said.
A total of 89 refused to take up the offer of buses, despite what they said was pressure from airport authorities, who kept them in the baggage area overnight.
Papadopoulos, who had travelled to London for the holidays, said that the passengers were finally offered a hotel stay at 8am Saturday but they refused, saying they would stay put until a plane arrived to take them to Greece.
"Some of us contacted Greek media," Papadopoulos said.
Informed of the passengers' plight, the Greek government arranged with Greek carrier Aegean Airlines to send a plane to Timisoara. Transport Minister Christos Spirtzis weighed in against what he said were "low cost, low social responsibility" airlines.
The 89 passengers arrived in Thessaloniki around 5pm Saturday. The flight normally would have taken around 3.5 hours.
Ryanair issued an apology for the diversion, saying that it was "beyond our control".
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Ryanair are a perfectly good airline when things go according to plan.
Moderate issues (delays due to weather) were handled much more professionally by FR compared to some other much more expensive airlines I experienced.
And if things go wrong, even companys like LH can sometimes simply leave you to your own devices. Even if you are a gold member with a business ticket they may not offer you what they are obliged to by law (food, drinks, hotel...) !