Ryanair May Charge us £1 to Spend a Penny! (Ryanair)

Member Name: Machair1

Product:	Ryanair
Date:	03/03/09 (107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fly to many destinations.

Disadvantages: Pay To Use Your Bank Card.

If you open the page at www.ryanair.com you will be met by maize of information which if you are not careful will hit you with a feeling of jumbled chaos! You may perform disjointed analysis, where you risk losing all clarity in your thoughts. Exciting yes, plain and simple no! You have to be internet savvy, and you have to be ready to face the booking challenges as an informed customer. Follow me!

Ryanair- their sneaky reticence cloaks their ability to shower us with the real prices of what they sell. My advice which follows sums up what you should be aware of when booking.

1. Be aware of the distance and the cost of where you are flying to-it may be really tempting when they offer a cheap flight for 1p, only to find you are clobbered with incidentals.

I am somewhat of a Ryanair veteran, having used them many times over the last few years, mainly for journeys to and from Scotland. Their rival, Easyjet, used to have a campaign which said "fly to an airport- not an airfield" which of course was indirectly targeting Ryanair, who do on many occasions use airports less central and less convenient. It is always very important to locate the airport on a map, and secondly to assess the costs of the transfers. To give you an example Oslo Torp is not exactly Oslo- in fact it is 100 km away, and Norway is not cheap. A transfer will cost you 300 NOK return on the shuttle bus which takes almost 2 hours, which equates to £30. Paris Beauvais is not exactly Paris (80km away) and a transfer will cost you £23.50 return and takes an hour.

However, in the case of some airports such as Carcassonne it is only a short and cheap bus ride to the centre. On a positive note all transfers by train to anywhere in Scotland are half price when you show your Ryanair itinerary, so it may be 30 miles outside of Glasgow if you fly to Prestwick, but it is only £5 return to the city, and if you are going onto the highlands it is a great saving.

2. Watch the cloaked charges very carefully as nothing is ever as cheap as it sounds. At the moment they have a million seats £3 one way, so I typed in Prestwick today just to explain how this works. Amazingly I can go on 24th March and return on 30th from Stansted for only £6 including taxes-it's a bargain! I wouldn't be able to take any bags on this though, as these are charged at £10.90 which is already added on, as is insurance at checkout, so unless you need them press delete. This price is for online check in, as airport check in costs more. Be careful too- as it adds on priority boarding for £3.90 if you don't watch it you pay for it so press delete. But the sting in the tale it costs £4.75 to pay by any card other than electron- even Maestro per leg, so it can never be as cheap as it sounds.
To check all these add ons go to the FAQ section and look under "WHY IS THERE A HANDLING CHARGE WHEN I RESERVE MY FLIGHTS? "-NOTE ESPECIALLY THE SECTION ON BABY COTS AND CAR SEATS- THESE ARE CHARGED AS WELL.

OK SO IS ALL THIS FAIR AND WHAT IS MY OPINION OF RYANAIR?

Personally I feel that they have provided us with an overwhelming choice of destinations which has opened up tourism in areas where before travel was difficult. This has caused delight for many living there, and despair for others. There is no doubt in my mind that offering cheap fares is contributing to more flights and more environmental impact, but certainly I feel I am unable to comment too negatively as I am a plane lover, and certainly relish the thought of being able to visit places like Haugesund in the Norwegian Fjords, or Pau in the Pyrenees, but I feel we must look to the wider implication of what this means in terms of the legacy we leave to our children.

I just got back early this morning from a trip to the Outer Hebrides which involved a stop in Glasgow and I flew with their rival Easyjet on the way home having used Ryanair for the outward leg. In terms of performance I would say that undoubtedly Easyjet is more professional and the flight is organised in a much clearer and less cattle like manner. Ryanair do give you sequence numbers for boarding, but in reality only board the priority ones first i.e. those who have paid extra and all others jostle for a seat, and may have to stand for a long time in a queue. On board Easyjet keep announcements to a minimum- Ryanair are trying every trick to sell scratch cards, gifts, sandwiches and even on landing they have an announcement with a bugle which heralds your on time arrival. The flight is chaotic and noisy and sleep is difficult if you want to rest for the hour. Easyjet also allow you to return on an earlier flight free of charge if you arrive at the airport earlier than planned which is a fantastic and free service.

So whilst I think that Easyjet have the upper hand in the war for flights, I think Ryanair are offering a service which as a plane lover I will continue to use. They are thinking of extending their service to fly to The States soon- as my son lives there this will benefit me no end, as internal flights in the states are cheap, and so wherever they fly to I should be able to transfer easily to Phoenix in Arizona.

I can't help wondering sometimes though as I am looking down from above the clouds, just what all this is doing to our world and our planet. Plane travel ironically has made it possible for people to emigrate more easily, but separating families has meant more need for plane trips to see each other as a result. I am now in the position where almost everyone I love lives somewhere else, and I am spending more and more time on flights. I certainly value the contribution made by Ryanair and others. However, when you see on the news the drastic changes being made in the lives of our fellow human beings who are pushed aside to make room for airport expansion, I can't help but feel it is such a bitter sweet pill.

Ryanair themselves are offering a low cost service which is stripped down to the basics. If you are prepared to book and check in online yourself, if you are prepared to carry only a small bag on board, and to suffer the relentless chatter of sales talk on the aircraft, and of course, risk sitting on your own, then its ok. I really do object to paying over £9 just to use my bank card -not even credit card though -I think this is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. The flight I priced earlier, unless you have an electron card (which Ryanair are for a limited time offering no fees to use), is not £6 return, even if you remove all the other possible add ons it is over £15, because the charges to pay by bank card are mandatory. These are not just for credit cards which I can understand, but just to purchase with a debit card, because there is NO OTHER WAY TO PAY!

But the latest possible progression of the stripped down service is that they are considering charging £1 to use the onboard toilet. Whatever next? - Well whoever thought that up can't be serious. Charging us £1 to spend a penny -transatlantic that could be quite a cost!

Summary: Mixed feelings