Originally Posted by dhuey
Last week, I flew from Nimes to London Luton on Ryanair. I've seen lots of complaints here about these folks, but my experience was just fine. The main things to watch for with Ryanair are the actual location of the airport and the baggage allowance. The locations are sometimes far from the cities they "serve" (in my case, though, Nimes was very convenient).
Also, I had to pay about 60 euros for my excess baggage. I wasn't really traveling that heavy, but I knew that was the deal going in.
The flight itself was similar to a Southwest flight, except that you have to pay for anything you want -- even soda and coffee.
So...I recommend Ryanair IF the price is right after you account for ground transportation and baggage charges.
Well, the price is sometimes very right. I have paid as little as 5 pounds for a round-trip including taxes LON-STO, which actually is STN - NYO, both about 2 hours from the city centres.
I have never understood all the complaining either. Almost all of the disadvantages of flying RyanAir are known prior to booking and definitely after ticketing. They send a very detailed e-mail clarifying how travel with RyanAir works.
Problems arise with Ryan for those that do not have experience with them. Another problem is when they implement changes often and are sometimes inconsistent, such as the change to allowing only 15kg of baggage when industry standard is 20kg.
These changes and inconsistencies seem to often be done in a way that even experienced travelers are confused by them and may error at least one time in a way that costs them or negatively effects their travel experience.
An example was that even aware of the baggage allowance and having a bag come in at 15.1 kg, the agent made me weigh the carry-on and it showed 11.9 kg. I indicated that I had newspapers and post that I would be going through and throwing away along with food and drink that I was going to consume in terminal. He insisted that I could not go through without it being under the 10 kg limit and forced me to change 2kg over to my checked baggage. But then being winter in Sweden came the shocker. He made me weigh my coat which contained keys, electronics and coins. Well, it weighed 4kg. He forced me to pack 2 kg of items over to the checked bag. My bag now was up to 19kg, under the industry standard but not RyanAirs. I was sent over to pay and then return to pick up my number, which was number 3 by the way. The man in front of me who was number 1 checked a plastic bag that weighed 2kg so they were already quite ahead on total weight. All of this occurred and gave way for the second buss from the city to arrive and there were now a hundred people in line and they had embarrassed an experienced traveler who even knew the rules. They should have just had me pay without all of this nonsense of changing things around and let me put aside the items i would be throwing out during my 2 hour wait in the Terminal as they force me to check in so early.
But what made me angry was that I sat to the side and watched the entire check-in process after I had checked in. Not a single other passenger was sent over to pay. I watched families with baby buggies, a band with musical instruments and then of course many who had relatives or friends standing to the side guarding their carryons so they would not be weighed, something that a single traveler can not do. They may have lockers in some airports though. Good idea to lock you carry on and coat in one though if they have them.
I had a rule to fly RyanAir only when they were 70% below my preferred star alliance carriers where I have gold status.
After this incident, and the fact that they did not respond to my letter about being the only one singled out they lost a customer that at least understood their business plan and knew what I was getting when buying my ticket.
They seem to be doing fine without me as one of the only profitable airlines in Europe.