Buyer Beware! (Ryanair)

Member Name: annabanana456

Product:	Ryanair
Date:	19/11/08 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheapness

Disadvantages: No customer service, poor information

I am not someone who has unrealistic expectations so when I booked two cheap flights with Ryanair it was in the knowledge that yes, maybe we will be herded on to the plane, that we would not get any nice complementary refreshments and that our airport would actually be about an hour and a half away from where we were actually going (Brussels = Charleroi Airport) but I expected at the least to go away and come back from our holiday on the dates we had booked.

I had booked the tickets as a surprise for my boyfriend a couple of Christmases ago along with a nice posh hotel. Here begins the story of why I would never travel with Ryanair again....

It started with the 6am flight which had been advertised as leaving from Glasgow. At about 4am in the car on our way to Glasgow airport my boyfriend asked me about the flight times and there I saw in tiny writing "(Prestwick)" which is about an hour away from Glasgow. This problem was quite easily solved as we were only about half way to the airport.

Once we had got to the airport we experienced no delays and thankfully had not gone over our miniscule baggage allowance which some disgruntled customer in front of us had done and was in the process of emptying some of the contents of their suitcase into their hand-luggage - how which bag people distribute their packing into makes a difference to the weight on the plane I will never know.

After three days spent in beautiful Brussels it was time to go home. We made our way to the train station and had just missed the train that would have got us there so went to find out how much a taxi would cost. We then decided that we would just wait for the next train to avoid the 80 euro taxi fare offered to us by the shifty looking cab driver outside.

We got to the airport about 10 minutes late for check-in but were told we could still check in so into the waiting lounge we went. After about an hour of waiting, announcements started to be made. Three flights cancelled, not ours though, they kept saying ours was delayed. Two hours after waiting to board, the announcement came that the flight back to Prestwick had been cancelled due to poor visibility. I thought this was fairly strange as we had seen planes landing while waiting, but then what do I know about flying a plane?!

We went to collect our luggage to return to the main entrance of the airport. Chaos quickly ensued. As all the flights were cancelled there were about 600 people who had had their flights cancelled waiting for somebody to tell them what was going to happen - Ryanair had five information desks with one member of staff manning each desk. Children were getting lost, people were shouting at others for jumping queues which did not exist, complete mayhem. I decided that getting angry would not be the best solution to the problem so waited my turn to reach the desk. While I was waiting in the queue a Ryanair staff member walked past, "excuse me", I said, "can you please tell me if there will be any extra staff coming to help these people soon", the response I received was, "I'm on my break".

Eight hours after joining the queue, with no refreshments offered by Ryanair I reached the front. I was given four options:

1. They will pay for a hotel for one night and will receive no flight.
2. I could get my flight refunded (fat lot of good £70 was going to be to get two of us home)
3. I could get a flight anywhere in Europe (hey, what happened to no flights going out??!)
4. I could be put on a waiting list for a flight back to Prestwick leaving six days later but since I had been at the back of the queue nothing was guaranteed.


None of these options seemed hugely appealing to me or my partner so I stood for 40 minutes, refusing to leave until they had arranged for me to get to my place of departure the next day. Thankfully this worked and was given a flight to Dublin leaving the next day and a flight from Dublin to Prestwick. They did try to charge me for part of the return flight but I think they had realised by that stage that I wasn't leaving until I got my own way.

Ryanair customer service was appalling that day, there was no structure, service or proper systems in place to get things sorted out quickly when cancellations or delays happen so since then, I have not flown Ryanair and never would again.
I'd rather pay a bit more to be looked after properly if I ever got stuck in another country!

One final note - You may have read this review and thought what a silly sausage I was for not calling my insurance company straight away. I did but unfortunately as I was booking my flight I also paid for Ryanairs own travel insurance which only covers your outbound flight and not your return - so if you do decide to fly with Ryanair, GET YOUR OWN INSURANCE!!!

Summary: Don't risk being abandoned when things go wrong!