Call me Dave and slap me with the OT stick, but I have to add here that the infamous coffee lawsuit is not quite what a lot of people understand it as being.

The lady who scalded herself did so with a cup of coffee heated to 180–190 �F (82–88 �C) which Mcdonalds continued to do despite over 700 reports of people being burned by over-heated coffee in the previous decade including settled claims for more than $500,000. It was not industry practice to serve coffee that hot (other establishments were shown to serve coffee less hot) rather it was a requirement dictated by McDonalds to their franchises, despite the accidents.

She scalded herself badly (third-degree burns on 6% and lesser degree on 16% of her body) and stayed in hospital for 8 days while she had skin grafted.

She requested $20,000 from McDonalds, having incurred $11,000 in medical costs. They offered her $800. Only then did she sue, asking for $90,000.

The initial award of punitive damages of $2.7m was a surprise to all concerned, but was calculated as 2 days of sales of coffee revenues.

It was excessive, clearly, and I question the merit of the argument that it was too hot (I don't think cool really works for brewing coffee) but hey, there you are.

Oh, and I don't think anyone would spill coffee on them because it was hot

I agree with your points but:

1. Whenever I have flown in Europe and checked the FR fares they have not been the promotional ones.
2. FR's APV may well be EUR 37 buy this does not necessarily mean that the overall cost is lower when factoring in bags, travel to out of the way airports etc...

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

The main benefit to BA and other non-FR flyers is that through competition Ryanair have drastically reduced the average fares (in real terms) paid by most economy passengers on many routes.

Unfortunately it's a double-edged sword as this has been achieved at the detriment of employment terms and conditions for many BA staff and contributed to the cost-based "enhancements" that continue to impact premium and non-premium travellers.

Basically, whilst O'Leary may not have started the race to the bottom, he's certainly the pace setter.

Did they not have travel insurance then?

I live 40 minutes from Frankfurt-Hahn and I refuse to fly Ryanair.

Why?
Something goes wrong, they throw you under the bus, uh, plane...
Fees for everything
Cattle car seating
Seats that don't recline
Pay for everything on board
No lounges
Airports in the middle of nowhere


The way I see it a good journey includes what happens at the airport and onboard the plane.

I have flown Ryanair a few times, but only within the UK (I fly to STN every week and EZY are playing funny buggers with their late night flights).

I don't mind it as I take the first flight out and the last one homewhicj usually means some quiet. Would I go on Holiday with them? No chance! I'm sure many people like me are happy to spend their companies money but not their own

I've said this elsewhere http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...n-ireland.html but what a shame BA doesn't 'do' NI. It would mean so many wouldn't have this kind of problem.