Just posted on the Ryanair website:

What an utterly dreadful programme. I had a look at the correspondence between BBC and Ryanair on the Ryanair website - from what is put up (no doubt only the juicy bits in FR's favour), it does look like an amateur job by the BBC.

Where was their transport correspondent in all this that we sometimes see popping up on FT asking questions or for your experiences?

I don't really get what people have against Ryanair.

It markets itself as a no frills budget airline. It offers to get you from A to B on time for the lowest price and more often than not, it does so.

I live in the US now and UA and Frontier are my airlines of choice (because they're the ones contracted by my work) but if I'm completely honest, UA economy isn't all that much better than Ryanair, at least not enough to justify the price difference for a similar distance flight (Frontier is another matter).

Before Ryanair travel around Europe was expensive and elitist. As a student, I had the opportunity to have 10-15 European weekends a year thanks to Ryanair. Usually for about 30 Euros each way.

Most of the complaints I see leveled against Ryanair seem to be quite silly in my view, take for example the "hidden charges" - I was a student when I did most of my Ryanair flying, I knew the budget I had going on to the website and at no stage did I think I was going to end up paying 1 cent for a ticket. I factored in the CC charge and the booking fee, I was smart enough to decline the add ons and I could pack a weekends clothes in a carry on. When I paid my 60 Euros return, I didn't through a tantrum because it was 59.99 more expensive than advertised (with taxes, airport charges and ryanair charges) I merely compared it to the Aer Lingus/EasyJet/BMI/BA fares and saw I'd just saved myself about 100 Euros.

Then people complain about the level of in-flight service.... errr how do you think the company makes it's money? Do people think Ryanair are offering low prices out of the goodness of their heart? You get what you pay for, period. Ryanair never compares it's standard of comfort of service to BA or any full cost airline.

The airport locations... hrmm yes.. I can see an issue here... I'll admit I've looked at some destinations and thought "I'd like to go there" and then seen the actual airport location and decided against it. In other cases...As a casual traveler, Beauvais isn't that much worse than CDG.... OK, you can factor in another 40 Euro bus fair to Paris city centre which may bring your ticket price up, but again, still probably cheaper than flying to CDG and having walked through CDG I don't think strolling out of Beauvais and busing to Paris is less convenient than making your way through and out of CDG on a busy day. I've read posts on the web were people have complained "I was left stranded 120km from the city I wanted to be in" Really? You mean you actually made travel arrangements and arrived at the airport without ever even once looking up the airport transport services?? That would have given you a good idea. And that's Ryanair's fault? Are these the people who sue when they spill coffee on themselves because it was hot?

The bottom line is if you blindly book a Ryanair flight and don't actually do any sort of planning or research on the process or don't read the terms of the booking, you kinda deserve what you get. If you want comfort and convenience and are willing to pay, then fly with another airline. If you want budget travel, expect budget travel.

Sorry. this turned into a rant

Quite.

Ryanair have been around long enough now that everyone has flown on them and knows that they charge for things that used to be 'free' or have been told by someone that they charge for things that used to be 'free'.

I'm sure that when the Aliens invade, part of the handover briefing will include a caveat that a Ryanair 2p fare is really only half the story.

I would much prefer Panorama or Dispatches to investigate irrops and the fact that all the airlines try and shirk their obligations under the EU regs. Perhaps Ryanair are the worst, who knows?

But please, can they stop banging the 'Ryanair charge for things' and 'their airports aren't always where you think they are' drums as these are neither news, nor newsworthy.

I know Was pretending to be a clueless reporter after the BBC said you can't get Electron credit cards in the UK.

I was unlucky I didn't join diamond club until after the bmi Mastercard was gone to general application.

I thought there were some really great take off and landing shots of the Ryanair 737's.

Cheers Larry.

PS - I aint paying �4-50 for a butty though.

That is exactly my point.

O'Leary is multiple-counting when he's talking about Ryanair's passengers. 64 million people may have flown Ryanair last year, but a high proportion of those 64 million people flew Ryanair more than once.

If you count up all the times a person watched the BBC last year (counting each viewing as a separate person as O'Leary is counting each passenger flown as a separate person) in the same way, you'd have billions of people.

O'Leary is wrong.

BA have been around long enough now that everyone has flown on them and knows that they charge for things that used to be 'free' or have been told by someone that they charge for things that used to be 'free'. I only changed one word, honest.Nor true in many cases, and they do offer many more routes from UK airports than London Airways.I must have missed the smiley first time around and was only trying to be a helpful FTer. You wouldn't believe some of the questions we see here.

yeah but o'leary is still on the winning end of that one financially because everytime you take a new ryanair flight you pay for it.
You just pay annually for the licence and usually once per household.
If the bbc was operated as a pay per view ie like for like,you'd see a substantial drop in its viewership turnaround

Oh no he's not ......... as your point proves his general point is that in spite of some people's comments people that fly Ryan like it so much they do so repeatedly.

We all owe him a lot.

I've never flown with them but admire their success. They must be doing something right, but they are not fro me. But they have helped me by creating an industry that is eve more mindful of value. His big issue will be if ever (g*d forbid) there is an incident. This could quickly bring the airline down as the issue will be either a mechanical / maintenenace issue or a human error and either way the scrutiny of his money saving programmes will be very close and highly judgemental.

Just because he can be irritating we shouldn't misjudge his acuman or the success of his product.^

I've flown Ryanair a few times although this was a few years ago before they went totally mad with cost cutting. At the time they were great, got you from A to B cheaply and on time. Now they've gone so far I'm with the people that say they are making it deliberately confusing and difficult so as to extract more cash from you.

What really gets my goat is the charges that you HAVE to pay in order to fly. For example, why do I have to pay to check in (even online) when it is not possible for me to fly without doing so? That's like being charged to put a letter in a letter box after you've bought the stamp.
Yes, I know that I pay for these services in the fare with other airlines, I prefer it that way, when I know what the price will be upfront.

Why do I have to pay to pay?? Surely that has to be illegal, it infruriates me so much that the 'handling' fees are so high and nowhere near what Ryanair is actually charged. If the banks aren't allowed to do this then why is Ryanair?

I wouldn't dream of flying Ryanair again because it seems to be their mission to screw you for every penny whilst delivering the bare minimum service that the law currently allows. Not for me.

Another FR lie - they're not free, they're 1p/1c each.

All-in if you take hand baggage and pay with a Visa Electron card. Book by 14.10.09.

FR's pricing policy is flexible. Yesterday, the promotional price was from �2.50 on a wide range of destinations. Today's 'free' offer is to a more limited list, and some of yesterday's are �10 today. I wonder what Thursday's offer will be.

It's difficult to argue with FR's 11 claims of inaccuracy at http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news....=pro-en-131009

I especially like no. 11:

I gather the 'public' O'Leary is a very different animal to the real one. Recall some comments from Willie along those lines...MOL was the first to call after the BA38 crash for example.

Really, if you don't like Ryanair, don't fly them. I flew one round trip, was delayed on the return and forced to check my carry on. At that point I decided they weren't for me and haven't gone anywhere near them in 10 years.

[hat on]
As this isn't even tangentially related to BA we will give this thread a little longer here before to budget travel
[hat off]

He most certainly is incorrect. My original post was about the fact that he said "64 million people flew Ryanair last year - that more than watched Panorama and more than watched the BBC."

If you're going to multiple-count, then a hell of a lot more than 64 million people watched the BBC last year (and likely Panorama for that matter). If you're going to single-count, then a hell of a lot fewer than 64 million people flew Ryanair last year.

Either way, he is wrong.

Erm, yes. I was just going to say that.

Yes, I am curious quite how close to the edge he is skating. There was a revealing (and far more controversial) documentary on IIRC Channel 4 a few years ago which implied basically that Ryanair was an accident waiting to happen. So far, so good...

Yes, that is true.

More at http://www.travelmole.com/stories/11..._id=_r_r_rb~An