Ryanair deserves all the heat for splitting up families to cash in on reseating, but I found them to be above average reliable operationally.

I've never been on a cancelled Ryanair flight. Late yes (and compensation promptly paid). I've been treated deplorably by EI, LH, EK and SQ when they cancelled flights. A recent late LH at DUB cancelled last minute and on Flight Radar 24 I watched the empty flight position to Edinburgh to pick up passengers from an early morning flight that had been cancelled. I've been on a EI flight to FRA cancelled due to snow at DUB. Again on flight radar I watched the same aircraft head off to LHR 35 mins later.

For persons who never pay for a seat on FR, I can see their point and I really think splitting families with young children is a safety issue. The thoughts of a 20 min wait at check in would make me pay for a seat.

Tesco have double prices on their supermarket shelves here. The cheaper price if you are a Clubcard member the dearer price if you are not. Airlines, Supermarkets etc etc they are all at it. With Ryanair you see an enticing fare for EUR15 then you need to add this, add that, add the other = the real price so shopping for the lowest fare gets more difficult for the average consumer who probably still believes they are getting it for EUR15!!! Still Ryanair flies to places I want to go to, safely, on time and I have a choice because of healthy competition.

Do you need to pay for a Clubcard in Ireland? It’s the same in England but the “cost” of a Clubcard is letting them have your personal data by signing up. I believe there’s a separate paid scheme but that’s entirely optional when it comes to the offers. Doesn’t seem a like-for-like comparison.

There's two different risks

1) standard risk of seating children beside random adults for a few hours
2) incident risk - splitting family groups of any age slows down evacuation which may increase fatalities

Sober Lark,
Just as you have never experienced a cancelled Ryanair flight, I have never experienced a cancelled LH or EI flight. I'm a frequent flyer with LH. I have not flown EK or SQ as I have other options from where I travel. I can assure you that RYR do cancel flights and I can assure you that they leave you with few options other than a refund (only for the sector cancelled mind) or a seat on the next available flight (which might be two days away). My understanding from friends is that Ryanair is "OK" but only if all goes according to plan! However, as I mentioned at the beginning, I opt not to fly on Ryanair and therefore I never have a need to complain about them.

Point valid and accepted FUMR

A good few years ago I had a Krisflyer card with 1.25 m miles but after being badly treated after a cancelled flight I thought I deserved more and never flew with them again. Do you think they missed me? Not on your life . So is this an example of the customer being always right and you should look after them or is it an example of an airline not getting bogged down and getting distracted in pursuit of customer satisfaction? Ryanair is no different and wants to keep their retail shareholders happy through growth. Ryanair will always make headlines, people love to moan, journalists love to write but at the end of the day none of this will put people off flying with them and their astonishing growth will continue.

Neither has anybody else.

A perfect example of why never to post when drunk.

Well obviously because as they expressly point out (or used to) it is a "point to point" airline, so no connections are guaranteed. If I used a LCC to make a connection, I would always have it in the back of my mind that I might not make it and any money saved by using this option has to be offset against the potential expense of making my own alternative arrangements.

Incoming - that should be FLAK :} ( FLiegerAbwehrKanone )

Yes, I understand that. Indeed all bookings are point-to-point. My meaning was (as happened to a friend of mine) if you book say AAA-BBB-AAA and they cancel the AAA-BBB flight, they only refund that sector. The fact that the next available option then prevents you from using the return booking as planned is of no concern to RYR.

That was my first reaction too and then I remembered two occasions when I was already sitting in an aircraft when the flight was cancelled.

Perfectly put. These are serious risks and need to be addressed. Ryanair are putting themselves at risk of legal action if a safeguarding incident occurs or a child is injured or gets in the way of people during evacuation

That's an eventuality I hadn't considered! But is it certain that would there be any better guarantee with a standard airline?

No guarantees, but from personal experiences, a legacy operator will do all within its means to get you to your destination ASAP, even with another carrier if need be. And, of course, the major airlines can transfer stranded pax to one of their alliance partners. For instance, albeit a few years ago now, when my Eurowings flight DUS-BHX went tech, my family and I were re-routed DUS-FRA-BHX with Lufthansa. We still qualified and received full compensation for the delay, which was about 4 hours. Another time when flying KLM from DUS via AMS to ATL the DUS-AMS flight was cancelled due to an ATC failure in AMS. We were re-routed DUS-CDG-ATL with Air France and Delta. In all honesty I don't know what the policy is on the legacy carriers these days, but I expect that the good ones continue to do their very best to get you to your destination ASAP.

But the wrinkle you pointed out was not that of reaching your destination, but of not getting back from it on the previously booked return flight (if your stay was only a short one and you couldn't make the return flight because of the delay in getting you there in the first place...) and thus forfeiting the price of the return trip.

Had Ryanair from Charleroi to Dublin cancelled due to a snow storm in Dublin which affectively closed Dublin for two days. The Ryanair ground staff was fabulous..found a hotel and transport late at night as well as paying for it. Next afternoon we were back in the airport but due to lack of deicing in Dublin the outgoing flight was delayed several hours (one of the passengers had a friend on the out going aircraft who kept us up to speed on the delay). The aircraft arrived just before Charleroi closed for the night but ATC etc agreed to stay on and we left around 20 mins after official closing.. great service..Ps I’m not drunk nor was when I made my other post..just old and stupid..and having the p@ss taken is water of a ducks back and was part of my short career flying for three legacy carriers. Danke für die deutsche korretur

In diesem Fall meine ich, dass Verbesserung besser passen würde .:}. Nichts für ungut,

Sometimes it's easier to chat about these things at the bar! In my friend's case RYR offered him a flight the following day which was too late for him to make the wedding he was going to. They refunded him the outbound leg. When he pointed out that he was now forced to cancel the entire trip with them their answer was that the "return" flight wasn't cancelled , so not refundable. My examples were just that, unlike that experience, I did arrive on the planned day, albeit a little later.

Ryanairs punctuality is largely because they fly to an airport that no one else uses and is 80Km from where you actually want to go to. But many of these airports suit quite a lot of people who are not near a major airport. So that alone gives them a good on time departure record and a decent market from people who dont want to travel to a big city airport.

Thats a good busines model-a la SW in the USa , dont take pax from United or American but Greyhound busses. I think much of the penny pinching they could scale back on and still make a decent profit, i suspect MoL is of the any publicity is good publicity school; they also seem to keep their pilot s pretty happy even if they work hard-always a good idea since no pilots no flight..
Personally iwouldnt chose to fly them given a choice but they ahve done a good job for their shareholders and millions of people who dont live in metropolises