Ryanair - My near death experience! (Ryanair)

Member Name: sweetpea01

Product:	Ryanair
Date:	11/01/09 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap options

Disadvantages: Inexperienced pilots

I travel alot through the year, probably around 8 to 10 times a year. These are mostly short breaks over a weekend. I use Ryanair all the time, I tend to book flights when they have deals on and manage to get tax free flights, 1p flights, which I think are fantastic!

However my first trip with Ryanair was not a pleasant experience whatsoever to the point I actually thought I was going to die.

My partner and I decided to have a quick weekend in Derry or Londonderry to be precise. Just somewhere we could go for a short break, shop a bit and take in some history. Ireland means alot to me as my grandad was Irish and we were reguarly told stories about his time there and what he got upto as a young lad!

We were flying out from Bristol which is an awful airport anyway but we were delayed, this is not uncommon for the Bristol airport, it annoyed us but nothing we could do about it! We finally got on the plane, which was easy as we booked priority boarding, the staff were friendly and were all smiling which is was nice.

The flight was smooth the airstewardess's were all helpful and were on call should anyone want anything. The flight to Derry was only 50 minutes which was nice!

We landed and everything was fine. An easy landing is always nice and the Captain welcomed us to the Emerald Isle!

However on the way back we were once again delayed due to heavy rain, eventually on the plane we were greeted by all unhappy staff, looking miserable and instead of welcoming the passengers were all chatting between themselves.

Our flight back to Bristol was awful, there was alot of turbulence and I mean ALOT! I fly every year and have done for 19 years and never have I experienced such a flight. It got so bad at one point about five people were ill.

We were informed that it was 10 minutes to landing, which pleased us all. All of a sudden we started to go down very very quickly which was alarming, before we could blink we could see the runway, we were going far too quick. All of a sudden the plane pulled up and we went back in the sky vertically.

At this point people started to worry and many were frightened, the Captain made an announcement and said they were attempting a second landing, the same thing happened all over again, we went down so quickly and were pulled up quickly many more people were ill and even started to cry because they were scared.

After 10 minutes the Captain came back on the overhead and said "we are going to think about what we are going to do, the weather is to bad to land". What do you mean think? your a captain you should know! I was frightened, my partner was feeling very ill. A few minutes later the captain made the announcement that they were going to land at Birmingham!

We finally landed at Birmingham which was successful but we were then told B'ham would not give permission to let passengers off! By this time panic turned to anger and there was a revolt! The airstewardess's told passengers Ryanair would put on transport from B'ham to Bristol. The stewardess's actually lost their rag with passengers and did start to shout at them which I think was completely unprofressional, instead of trying to calm people they were provoking anger.

Eventually we got off the plane and onto a shuttle bus. Halfway to the terminal the buss turned around as the Captain needed to speak to us! He informed us that the plane was going to re-fuel and go back to Bristol, if you wish to stay in B'ham Ryanair wont provide transport.

About 3/4 of the passengers decided to get back on, myself and my partner were some of the 1/4 that didnt. Ive never been so terrified in my life. Fortunately my parents live in Solihull and offered to take us back to Bristol.

It took Ryanair 2 hours to sort out luggage out and then the plane stayed on the runway for another 2 hours! We actually got back to Bristol before the plane had even taken off!

After looking on the Bristol Airport website it seemed that four planes landed in the space of time when our plane was trying to land twice and whilst circling, including another Ryanair plane. I understand there are different flight paths but 5 planes all trying to land within seconds of eachother is heading for disaster.

I wrote a letter of complaint to Ryanair and I enclosed my print off from Bristol Airport showing the plane landings and asking for an explanation. They wrote back to me (mis-spelling my name completely) and basically gave me a load of bull! However they did say they would investigate the unprofessionalness of the staff on board.

Overall a terrifying flight probably due to inexperienced pilots however I continue to use Ryanair and to date have had good flights.

But with Ryanair remember you get what you pay for! Don't expect first class service when you pay so little! Just sit back and try to enjoy the flight!

Summary: You get what you pay for