Cheap, but for how much longer? (Ryanair)

Member Name: bkecky

Product:	Ryanair
Date:	23/06/09 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap

Disadvantages: Cattle market type service, ignorant crew, creeping/surprise charges, over-priced, poor quality food

At first I believed that Ryanair was the answer to all my problems. Having flown frequently between England and France it seemed an ideal option, being cheap and convenient but in recent days it seems that what was originally reasonable is heading towards the unreasonable. Yes, prices are lower than competitors but I believe that even by paying a lower price there should be some basic standard of service expected. Nowadays they seem to be adding a charge here and an increased charge there so that actually your initial flight is no longer that cheap at all by the time you have finished!

My experience like another reviewer was that they charged me £40 for check-in when they had said that the rules had changed since the 21st May, which I am guessing a lot of people complained about as a week later I got an email informing me of the changes so I suppose this has been rectified. However you have to pay to check-in online, which I think is a little ridiculous.

On the actual flight the food is extortionately priced and is not worth the money at all. 6 euros for a microwave pizza, which was like rubber is not a reasonable price and i have learned not to take food anymore, no matter how hungry I am.

The staff are often very rude. I even had one experience when we were boarding the plane when the stewardess was shouting at passengers, "It's hand luggage, always the hand luggage, we need to get a move on", which I believed was unacceptable. The same stewardess that leaned over me with her bosom in my face so i had to tilt myself over to the next seat to avoid my face been squashed with no apologies, excuse me or anything! On the last flight the stewardess was even shouting at another stewardess and continued to slam things around during the whole flight. I think Ryanair is stretching their staff too much and consequently they are over-stressed and over-worked and not able to carry out a satisfactory level of customer service.

I don't particularly mind the cattle-market sort of manner of Ryanair as I usually fly alone so getting a seat or storing some luggage is not much of an issue but for families it can be difficult to split up so i would recommend priority boarding if you really can't be split up.

Another thing is that your flight never arrives at the correct time, always at least half an hour early. They claim that over 90% of flights arrive on time (and even give you a trumpet fanfare when you land to remind you of this) but it seems that this is more due to over-estimating the flight time rather than actual punctuality and service. So usually I am left waiting at the airport for a lift to arrive.

Another con is that with Ryanair you cannot buy duty free unless you can fit it in your hand luggage. I find that they should make passengers more aware of this as there are signs in most airports informing you that whatever you buy at the departure gate you can take through. But I was refused to take through a bottle of wine because it would not fit in the hand luggage so the choice was to pay a fee larger than the worth of the wine or leave it behind. Also i have been through with a string purse around my neck and was told to step out of the queue to put it in my handluggage, when all it was holding was my passport! This meant that I put it in only to take it out again as soon as I boarded the plane. They did this to many people in the queue and consequently there was a large hold up boarding the plane and we boarded 5 minutes before the scheduled departure time. I can understand a large handbag but a string purse is a bit extreme as it was obvious it would fit in and it was just unneccessary time wasting and adding stress to the journey.

To conclude, I believe that actually with the creeping Ryanair charges I may soon be switching to Air France, who now cost only a small amount more, have a greater luggage weight capacity and also provide food and drink for free with a reserved seat. I think if Ryanair keep raising these little charges, soon they may be the same as a chartered airline and they could lose the client base in the market they originally had the monopoly of.

Summary: Slipping standards and creeping prices cannot be a long-lasting successful strategy.