Ryanair pricing... new costs or computer error?
 

Just turned up on BBC news... could be a computer error or a new pricing strategy by O'Leary. Passengers are unable to access a digital boarding pass unless they pay for a seat. With a randomly assigned seat, they could only collect a printed boarding pass at the airport desk.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67613343

It was in The Mail on Sunday (yesterday), page 40.

Ryanair trying it on ...

Does it maybe allow them to push the random assignment of seats as late as possible, keeping more seats unassigned for longer, and thus increasing the chance that someone who is willing to pay will find their preferred seat?

This random seat stuff is a safety issue. Imagine a family on a budget being split up in the cabin. In the event of an evacuation, the father isn't going to go directly to his nearest exit if his family are elsewhere in the cabin, he'll be potentially going against the flow. One day, this will bite someone on the @rse.

Completely agreed. I'm genuinely surprised that the regulators haven't done something about this.

If an operator like this one wants it, it must be bad for you.

I thought that having a policy of children being seated together with accompanying adults was required to get your operator certificate. Another one is that an adult cannot be seated in an exit row if they are responsible for a child on the aircraft (no matter where the child is seated). Of course, having a policy and consistently implementing it are not the same thing.

also worth noting that for these policies, “together” usually includes adjacent seats across the aisle and also in front or behind

Then the regulator needs to start doing some 'Secret Shopper' trials and if the airline is found at fault then they have 7 days to sort, or their operator licence will be revoked.
In the UK we have too many regulators that are in name only, they take the cash but do very little to improve the situation for the people who pay their wages - the UK population.
Ofwat is a prime example of this.

According to the BBC article:

A useful trick (as a pax) in the past was to check in shortly before the check in deadline, because by that time, only the best (most expensive) seats would remain available and you would often get an exit row for free. I guess Ryanair tries to make people check in early by this change.

Yes, it absolutely is a safety issue. The Royal Aeronautical Society have even written about the danger of separating family groups.

But the CAA won't do anything to stop Low Cost Carriers actively separating family groups for their commercial advantage.

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/upd...now-available/

I never have complaints about Ryanair. I simply avoid flying with them! Perhaps more people should consider that option?

Same here, never flown them, but that's why I'm also unable to judge whether this is a serious attempt to shake down their customers for more cash, or whether there is another reason for the observation. My gut feeling says 'Ryanair trying it on' as has been mentioned earlier. They are skating on thin ice, trying to juggle serious safety issues and the boundaries of consumer legislation, or so it appears. On the one hand, sometimes you need a company/person to push the boundaries a bit, but the flip side makes me wonder where the benefit of this particular action is, other than in inflating O'Leary's bank account.

Of course that does not stop a father being with one sibling and a mother being elsewhere in the plane with another. It seems that people will not leave their luggage behind during evacuation and yet it seems they are expected to leave their loved ones. I thought this was identified as a problem in the Manchester aircraft fire and yet...................

I think Ryanair's rationale is that there aren't enough people (daft enough) to buy allocated seating so that revenue stream isn't performing - and some toxic little grey-faced gnome in the accounts department has had a brainwave - to make pax's lives so utterly miserable and fearful by threatening to subject them to lengthy, uncomfortable and hated queues at checkin with the added incentive of worrying if you're going to miss the flight (which is of course also to Ryanair's great financial advantage) thus inducing/co-ercing/bullying/frightening pax into coughing up for the outrageous allocated seating. $$Ker-ching$$
It also shows up the nasty cynical ripoff of charging £20 for an airport-provided boarding pass (perhaps because you've comitted the social crime of not posessing a smartphone) - when this new policy sees them dishing the damn things out en masse for free - so what was the justificaton of the £20 charge, except cynical opportunistic ripoff?

Having originally set off ostensibly trying to make air travel easier and more accessible they have now realised that by means of a total volte-face and turning it nasty and awkward they can extract yet more cash form their long-suffering victims.

What a revolting commercial morality these people have.

When you check in on line you haven't really checked in as the airline doesn't know if you'll show up for the flight, (missed connection, car crash, heart attack, family emergency). You only really check in when you are scanned at the airport, so what is the point of online check in.
I remember when you used to re-confirm a booking 48 hrs before the flight.

The point at which you check in is when you abandon what little chance you might have had of a refund or rebooking should you, for whatever reason, be unable to fly.

So do I and back in those days tickets had coupons which had to be pulled out for each sector.

Nor does it stop adult children (16+?) being seated separately or husband and wife, or people not in a formal relationship. But in all those cases one of them might try to reach the other(s) in case of an emergency. Groups of travelers should be able to be seated together irrespective of the legal relationship. But it will not happen because it is literally one of the most basic sources of income for the airlines now, and not just the lowcost-ers. For example - TK will randomly assigne a seat to their Y passengers, and it *cannot* be changed at all, if so)

Exactly. This is a feature of NeoLiberalism © - defund the regulator to such an extent that there's a snowball's chance... of random or diligent inspections to ensure compliance.

/rant

Flew with them once. Determined not to make the mistake twice.

I can fly Dublin to Malta for EUR24. I don't mind paying EUR18 for my preferred seat up front. There are 5 people here who won't fly Ryanair and off site there are 180 million who do. Ryanair has carried over 1 billion passengers without loss of a single life. How many airlines have achieved that safety record?

I fly Lufthansa Dublin to Frankfurt, I'll pay EUR130 and a seat reservation costs EUR20. I know they probably won't be on time, they may cancel the flight and if they do, customer service is deplorable.

In those days there were tickets ... :O

You are comparing 5 posters on this thread who don't with 180 million who do. A very balanced comparison! I would in fact suggest that a great deal more than 180 million don't fly with Ryanair.

I'm perfectly happy when airlines use charges to align the passenger interests and the company's interests - so a reasonable airport check in fee that reflects the cost to the airline of having staff and desk space at the airport - absolutely. This means that other passengers don't end up effectively paying for services that they don't consume.

Ryanair charging 55 gbp / euro for checking in at the airport - that's just nasty.

https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/useful...lp-centre/fees

Don’t get much chance to fly Ryanair, but when we do we find them a great way to fly. Follow their rules and you will pay a tiny amount of money for a service which is exactly as advertised. The alternative is a full cost carrier which often delivers a low cost service.

My son recently booked a long-haul flight with a flag carrier which he chose for their attractive price over the route. Only when he sent the travel details to us did he notice that the attractive price was because he had picked the default ticket option which included no hold luggage - for a flight of over 10,000km!

In other words, it's not just Ryanair that play fast and loose with their booking systems.

I've flown Ryanair quite a lot, have been (very) delayed only once and have always found one gets what one pays for, provided one reads the small print carefully.

(Ryanair also gave me one of my most exciting takeoffs ever back in the day with quite an empty plane, what must have been an ex-air force pilot and I guess a B737-200. Took off like a scared cat).

Brilliant reply.

and... more than 80% of the world's population has never flown.

Let's hope that all the latter don't now decide to post. :O

In the old days customers would buy several tickets for the same day especially on Fridays on BA and would claim a full refund on those not used. The mean no show was 12% on the code share route LHR -ZRH. Was a question of commuters being able to travel on an earlier or later flight depending on time of finishing work.
RIO would be far more of a problem when they had rampant inflation as the locals bought tickets in local currency when they got paid and cashed them in when they needed the money at the new exchange rate as the tickets were priced in USD.
I had one of the first flights which included airport printed tickets..the staff hadn’t heard of it at Nimes..mind you they are french (moi Aussie b4 I get any flack.
Dublin on the way out had introduced the hand baggage mafia for the first time since before covid.good.
Happy to fly with O’Leary’s lot but will never use the trump coloured airline again and avoid my old lot after a disastrous trip to the gulf.
It’s a terrible shame imho that the french stopped FR expansion there..destroyed tourism and 8? Years on Nimes in just getting back on its feet.
Sadly I have to pay a massive premium if I decide to travel the next couple of days ..as in 2000% on my last trip.

Are you suggesting Ryanair never cancel flights?

I have flown, as captain (not in RYANAIR), with many FOs who had been trained by RYANAIR and found their skills and knowledge to be excellent. I believe that their training dept to be very good indeed, that makes them a safe airline to fly with. The rest is money and expectations.

In terms of splitting families, I was a passenger on Ryanair yesterday. The aisle seat was occupied by a child of 8 or 9 years who flopped onto the tray table for the whole 3 hour flight and was very difficult to wake up when I went to the toilet . He appeared drugged, to be honest. I've no idea where his family were and they didn't visit him for the whole flight.
IF there had been a serious emergency involving an evacuation one wonders what would have happened.
​​​​​​(the other thought that occurs to me after the event is that he may have been a victim of trafficking, he really was doped out...I wish I'd brought it to the attention of the cabin crew)

I don't believe that Ryanair has tray tables.....

They certainly do, how else could they upsell you inflight food and drink.
They do have some non standard mods such as no recline on the seats and safety card printed on the back of the seat instead of a card.

You're possibly confusing with that they have no seat pockets.

It was a tray table. Please let's get back to the very bad situation that Ryanair or the child's parents decided it was a good idea for him to sit on his own with an unknown man like me for a three hour flight.

Oh, I do beg your pardon but I was answering Charlie_Fox. Nevertheless, did you actually read and understand what I wrote? I was simply pointing out that they do have tray tables but they don't have pockets in the back of the seats.

If you read the small print, follow all the rules and treat it as a bus service then you shouldn’t have a problem. Unfortunately legacy airlines are following their lead, previously there was a clear distinction between full service and low cost, the full service gave you meals and a baggage allowance whereas the low cost charged extra. Now these are add ons to an already higher fare. If it wasn’t for the down market airports that LCCs use, there would be little incentive to pay for a full service airline.

The French high-speed train market offers some interesting comparisons. The standard TGVs are run much like a standard airline, while the low-cost Ouigo service is run much like a LCC (right down to the garish colour schemes), you pay for luxuries such as baggage space and a power outlet at your seat, and in case of any difficulty on the line your train is much more likely to be delayed or cancelled than the standard TGVs.

Or (as I recently found out) resized. A few hours before my most recent trip I got a text telling me my double-decker train had been replaced by a single-decker train and as a result my seat no longer existed. I could travel but with no guarantee of anywhere to sit, and in a Ouigo there literally is nowhere else to sit apart from on the floor.

The lesson I've taken from all this, much as for LCCs, is not to take a Ouigo if I have a connection or really need to arrive more or less on time anywhere.