The more the media rants about the extra charges at Ryanair, the larger the airline grows. I find Ryanair’s approach, both to its expansion in Europe and its search for ancillary revenues, fascinating and, obviously, effective.
Personally, I have never heard an actual passenger complain about a Ryanair flight. I have heard plenty of second-hand complaints. It is similar to the media’s litany of complaints about Southwest Airlines’ “cattle call” boarding process, that in the end was what passengers actually wanted, faster and what they expected.
A lot of the success of Ryanair and Southwest is due to the fact that it is honest with passengers. Everyone knows what they are getting. Their expectations are a flight from Point A to Point B in a clean, safe aircraft for an affordable rate. Where virtually every legacy airline on both sides of the Atlantic seems to focus on their luxurious service to the shrinking group of business travelers with lots of disposable corporate money, both Ryanair and Southwest keep honing their marketing message and delivering what they promise, consistently and well.
Ryanair, in Europe, has been opening the continent to air travel just as Southwest did for years by starting scheduled service to smaller, out-of-the-way, but not too-out-of-the-way airports. These are the airports ignored by the major legacy airlines that serve hundreds of thousands of travelers.
Ryanair has air service or is starting it to Altenburg, Reus, Memmingen, Ancona, Brindisi, Pau, Tampere, Lodz and Brest. Heck, after living in Europe for 20+ years, even I don’t know where some of these towns are. But, Ryanair has begun serving these airports, bringing new air service and they are filling up their planes.
Not only is Ryanair making flying geographically available to these out-of-the-way population centers, but it continuously is searching for ways to make flying economically available for its passengers. Over long distances, flying in Europe on low-cost carriers is far less expensive than taking the train.
Plus, Ryanair doesn’t take their image as a fee-happy renegade airline too seriously. After their CEO declared (tongue-in-cheek) the airline may look at charging for using the toilets, the airline launched a passenger contest searching for the additional fee.
Launching the competition, Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said;
“Ryanair is Europe’s largest low fares airline and we plan to continue to reduce costs and fares by stimulating ancillary revenues. We have always provided passengers with choice, if you don’t want to pay for food – don’t buy it, if you don’t want to pay checked in bag charges – don’t bring checked in bags, if you don’t want to pay handling charges – then just use Visa Electron entirely free of charge.
Since we confirmed that we are considering a toilet charge we have received a huge number of ancillary revenue suggestions from passengers and we want more. We are asking passengers to submit their ideas with the most creative winning €1,000 cash. Some of the best suggests to date are:
· Charging for toilet paper – with O’Leary’s face on it,
· Charging €2.50 to read the safety cards,
· Charging €1 to use oxygen masks,
· Charging €25 to use the emergency exit,
· Charging €50 for bikini clad Cabin Crew.
Passengers can submit their ideas by email to competition@ryanair.com to enter their idea before the 30th March 2009. The winning idea will be chosen by Ryanair and our decision will be final.”
This spoof of a Ryanair emergency instruction card is proudly displayed on Ryanair’s website.
I’ll be interested to see Ryanair’s final list of new extra charges and their next out-of-the-way but in the midst of major population destination.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t believe that you have never heard first hand complaints about Ryanair. I’ll give you several. I’ve flown with them twice. First, they generally fly out of airports that are nowhere near the big city you want to go to (Hahn->Frankfurt, Stansted->London, Skavsta->Stockholm, etc). This means that you have to pay for a bus, train (if they have one), taxi, etc. to get from the out of the way airport to the city. This adds to your total travel time, robbing you from time in your destination, and sometimes time is money. Then there are the nickel and dime fees. On my flight from Frankfurt-Hahn to London-Stansted, I could not check in online because I was not an EU citizen. Then I got charged at the airport 5 Euros per person for not checking in online (which involved standing in one line to check in, where they give you a piece of paper to go stand in another line to pay the extra fee, and finally standing back in line in the original check in line). In addition, the plane is cramped, they must have the least amount of legroom in the business, and you have to pay for all drinks, yes water as well. They spend the flight trying to sell you food, drinks, lotto tickets, etc. So yes, you can sometimes get a significantly cheaper flight with Ryanair, and if you live in one of these hole in the wall towns that they fly to/from, great. However, if the price of another airline’s ticket comes anywhere near Ryanair, I’ll gladly pay more. Usually for me, if it is between two non-Ryanair flights, I’ll go with cheapest. Ryanair is the only airline that I don’t judge strictly by price, you have to take in the whole picture into consideration when flying with them. If you are really looking for first-hand complaints from Ryanair passengers, fill up your gas tank and drive to one of their out of the way airports and talk to anyone getting off the plane, I’m sure that you could find more than a few.
I am a Ryanair passenger with no complaints. I love that they don’t have a recline button on their seats. The flights are maybe 2-2.5 hours? If you have to recline, take the train. I don’t mind the extra fees because I don’t need the food, drinks, toilet. It’s a short flight and I come prepared.
Yes, there are times I wish they weren’t in some hole in the wall airport. Often in those times, I don’t fly them. Just as often, they are flying where I am going to or leaving from. Plus, they have late night flights.
I find it difficult that anyone could say that Ryanair were honest. They have always tried to lure people in with so-called cheap flights and then charge for everything
they could get away with – we joke about paying to use the toilet.
They have used the fact that people are used to standard levels of servce and so dont expect to pay to check-in or for luggage as they are things you expect to do when your travelling.
Its time that the EU outlawed all of these outrages charges and force airlines to
provide a minimum level of service. If you then elect to not use a service then it
could reduce the fare. That would be the honest approach.
The airline industry has demonstrated on more than one occasion, that it will rip-off
passengers at any chance it has. They were all forced by legislation and threat of legal action to show fares inclusive of charges.
Perhaps you should have done some research before suggesting that Rynair has got where it is today by being honest. They are always in the press and appear on most consumer forums as well as on TV for their latest money making antics.
u pay cheap for only your seat, safety, wat u wan from ryanair isnt just want to arrive the destination with cheaper flight ticket. Dont expect more since u r paying less.