Aidand107

I have recently started travelling a lot from Ireland to the UK. Ryanair have flights that suit me a lot. I am booking priority so I can have cabin luggage as they recently made new rules that you cant have cabin luggage if your not priority. I have found when you book this they have you queuing outside in the cold for up to 20 minutes while they de-board the plane. Surely this is no way to look after priority customers? Anyone else experience this or have a view?

stut

Depends on the airport layout. At LTN, for example, their gates are laid out this way, so they almost always do it.

​​This is the nature of the beast with FR. With priority boarding, you've bought an ancillary, you're not a premium passenger. Their business model is based primarily on efficiency, and the 20-minute turnaround is at the heart of that, above all else- if they don't have people ready to step on the second they can, they won't make it.

The airstairs layout can also mean the front (premium paid) row gets a soaking in bad weather. But that saves them landing fees.

If you go in with that mentality, and an expectation of why the fares are low and the timekeeping good, you'll get on fine with them. If you expect to be treated as a premium passenger, the goodwill won't last long.

UKtravelbear

with Ryanair being priority means more money from you but not better service from them.

Aidand107

Agree with UKtravelbear, when I flew from Dublin two weeks ago, I arrived at the priority line as they were starting to do the non priority line. They told me that the priority line was closed and that I needed to join the back of the normal queue. Its as if they directly go out of their way to make customers unsatisfied.

mfkne

This is Ryanair.

Aidand107

What can you do ?

GoldenItalianBoy

You can choose Aer Lingus!

stut

As this has had a good run in Europe, let's move it to its more natural home in the Other European Airlines forum.

<ta da da da da!> And that's another on-time thread move for Ryanair!

stut
Moderator
Europe Forum

dj_jay_smith

You know that you don't have to accept priory boarding. You can wait and board the aircraft last if you wish to. If you have paid for priority for another reason, such as luggage then this is where you get your added value from.

On my last flight I was with my wife and our 3 year old. We wanted to board towards the end, so that we don't have to queue up so long as a 3 year old does not like to queue up and wait! And this was proven to be the right choice because in our case;

• We arrived at the gate approx. 45 mins before departure. There was already a long queue full of "priority" boarders. They have obviously been there some time already, standing up and queuing.
• The incoming flight was late, so they had to wait even longer.
• They started "boarding" while passengers were still getting off the plane. Which meant that the departing passengers just moved into the air-bridge, down onto the tarmac and stood there instead of inside the terminal.

So in the end we sat in the warm terminal for about 1h 15 mins before we went and boarded the aircraft. This whole time the "priority" passengers had spent stood up queuing!
If you are happy to pay extra to do this then that's your choice, but nobody is forcing you to.