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Well this week I actually took the flight and I wanted to post a few thoughts on the experience and, maybe, see if my readers had had a similar experience.
My opinion is that Ryanair are attempting to make the experience of flying with them as uncomfortable as possible for a passenger. It is almost as if they've said "We are the cheapest airline around and as such you will suffer for the fact that you aren't paying a lot for your flight".
The suffering starts when you book.
The web-site itself is poorly designed with a cluttered layout, garish colour schemes and lots of 'offers' and 'adverts'. It has 14 tabs and 11 menu options to negotiate. This is mainly because Ryanair's business model is not to raise money be selling seats, but to raise money by selling everything other than seats (more about that later). As I mentioned previously the pricing is misleading and the addition of an extra charge for paying by credit card on-line is the salt in the wound that would, ordinarily, have put me off buying the ticket.
So the initial impression is not good. Lot's of bad design and a barely concelaled glee at finding different ways to take money off you whilst still offering 'free flights'. On top of that there is anecdotal evidence of the web-site having loopholes and problems which result in lock-outs and double charged credit cards.
Does it differ when you get to the airport? No. I checked in at Bournemouth which - admittedly - was going through some major renovations at the time. However the process was as follows:
- Queue up
- Give details to check-in lady
- Show passport
- Check one bag in
- Take second bag (golf clubs) round to another desk
- Queue up
- Give details to second check-in lady
- Pay for second bag
- Receive confirmation slip/receipt
- Take second bag (golf clubs) back to first desk.
- Queue up
- Give confirmation slip/receipt to first check-in lady
- Receive boarding card
- Take clubs to a third check-in area
- Show boarding card to guard behind glass screen
- Drop clubs on conveyer belt - hope they get treated well and arrive at destination.
16 steps including three queue's to check in one bag, one set of clubs and receive a boarding card. Nice way to start a relaxing holiday.
Ryanair operates a priority boarding sytem which means (for an additional fee) you can board the plane before the majority of the other passengers and choose 'the prime seats' (whichever they may be on a 737 with 180 identical seats). When priority boarding is called, however, there is a general scrum as folks jostle and work their way to the front of the queue to get on board.
Once on board passengers try desperately to find stowage for the 180 bags they have taken on board, each one of which is packed to the gills and just inside the maximum weight and size allowance (thereby not incurring an additional charge from the airline). As a result the plane takes off with packed overhead lockers, suitcases sticking out underneath seats and - most worrying - bags jammed behind peoples legs, a definite safety hazard in case of evacuation. None of the cabin crew seemed to mind this.
The aircraft themselves are designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. The interior decor is deep blue and bright yellow. The deep blue tends to be the leather on the seats you are sitting on and the yellow tends to be the overhead bins, the walls and - particularly - the back of the seat in front at eye level. This colour yellow fits with the airline's theme but it is also not at all conducive to trying to sleep or rest and relax. On top of that the seats do not recline. At all. Plus there are no storage areas in the back of the seats and your vision is dominated by the safety leaflet which has been embedded (surrounded by the garish yellow) into the headrest of the seat in front.
I suppose I could deal with that if that was the extent of it. However the modus operandi of the Ryanair flight is to minimise the opportunities to do anything other than spend money. There are constant interruptions throughout the flight:
- Drinks are served (to buy, of course)
- Food is served (to buy, of course)
- Lottery scratchcards are served (to buy, of course)
- Duty free goods are served (to buy, of course)
- Telephone cards are served (to buy, of course)
Then the cycle starts again. On a flight of a little over 2 hours I was offered two lots of drinks, two lots of food, two lots of scratchcards, a phone card and some duty free. I bought nothing, however. But each interruption consisted of an announcement over the public address system (pre-recorded by a Scottish gentleman with just that right sort of grating Scottish accent that I find annoying), followed by the cabin staff parading up and down the aisle trying to sell you things.
I tried reading the in-flight magazine as a distraction. Except there isn't one. Well, there is one, but it is handed out at the start of the flight to anyone who wants it. The magazine itself consists of a number of (admittedly quite well written) articles coupled with over 30 pages of in-flight advertising for Ryanair itself. Oh, and once you have the magazine you have to keep hold of it because - as mentioned earlier - there are no seat back pockets to store anything in.
Overall I found the experience to be very unsettling. The casual lack of respect with which customers are treated did concern me. The apparent safety violations of allowing bags to be stowed behind passengers legs was also worrying. I had concerns about whether Ryanair skimp on their aircraft maintenance to save money, but have been unable to uncover anything reliable that can confirm whether this happens or not. With a relatively new fleet I have to believe that this is not an issue at present.
My question to those who know is "Does this follow the Southwest Airlines lo-cost business model or is o'Leary at Ryanair blazing his own trail and wanting to run an aerial bus service?"
I suppose in the big scheme of things (and this is the argument a lot of people will - legitimately - throw back at me) for a 'free' flight what, really, can you expect? My counterargument to that is "How much abuse and bad service will you support before 'free' becomes 'too much'?". After all there has to be a dividing line between what you would expect if you were paying regular fares to a regular airline, and the level of service you expect when paying lo-cost airline fares. When does this tip the balance from being 'free and rough' to being 'abusive'?
It never ceases to amaze me how much stick Ryanair receive. If you don't like the airline, there are plenty of others to choose from. I fly from London to Berlin 12-15 times a year, and they've saved me thousands. I'm more than happy to forgo a few "luxuries", especially when the flight is only 90 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI doesn't amaze me that Ryanair receive all the stick they do. There's a reason for it.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right though, there are others to choose from, and you can rest assured that I will be using them in future. However you wouldn't want me to write an article such as this without at least have taken one flight with them would you?
I am interested in the fact that you deem customer service to be a 'luxury' (which is, effectively, what the article is all about). I would also repeat the question I ask in the post which is "How much abuse and bad service will you support before 'free' becomes 'too much'?"
Thanks for the post. Glad you took the time to read and comment.