can I count on RyanAir for connection?
 

Hi, I'm a long-time lurker, first-time poster....

I'm visiting friends in west Ireland and in London in a month, and am trying to complete my itinerary:

June 21: BOS-DUB on Air Canada
June 27: NOC-LTN by RyanAir
??? London to Dublin
July 4: DUB-BOS return on AC, departing at 9:40 am.

I'm trying to book a flight to get back from London to Dublin airport, and ideally I'd like to leave London the morning of July 4th to maximize my holiday time there, etc. It looks like my options are:

1) BA8080 from LGW to DUB, departing at 6:25 and arriving at 7:50.
2) RyanAir's FR 331 from LTN to DUB, departing at 6:25 and arriving at 7:35, <sarcasm> only GBP 0.01!! </sarcasm>
3) Flying from London to Dublin the day before, and hanging out at the airport overnight.

According to my reservation with AC -- which was pretty cheap because of travel on the 4th of July, I think -- the cut-off time for Check-In is 60 minutes before scheduled departure.

My question is: Would this be a do-able connection? Do options 1 or 2 seem like a wise idea, or should I just resign myself to leaving London on July 3rd? Does anyone know if BA would be able to transfer my checked bag to AC?

I've read a bit about RyanAir online and know better than to try to involve them in any interlining of baggage. Can anyone offer any comments about whether BA might be more likely than FR to be ontime? Would I be foolish to rely on FR for an intermediate flight like this?

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated! I'm excited to have joined the FT community.

The answer is easy: DON'T.

There is always the risk of something not working out, but taking Ryanair seems like asking for it IMHO...

cheers,
pcf

I wouldn't rely on either BA or FR for this. It's just too tight. Of course, 95% of the time it wouldn't be a problem, but the other 5% you are going to be very annoyed and out of pocket for a probably very expensive one-way ticket bought last minute.

Do you like gambling?

SmilingBoy.

LHR is pretty bad using any airline for connections.

IF you do use Ryanair they make it pretty clear that they aren't accountable for any missed connections due to delay or other reasons.

Thanks to FT, I booked a return flight in The Biz on bmi to LAS from MAN (leaving at around 10am). I'd arranged to meet MrLapLap in the US and he was travelling from Tokyo (it was cheaper for both of us to get to LAS than for me to get an economy filght to NRT). There were only 3 bmi flights to LAS from MAN per week so I wasn't prepared to miss it. Even though there was a connecting flight to MAN from LHR early that morning I refused it and travelled to MAN the night before instead (slept in the airport).

You might want to talk to a travel insurance company and find out from them what they consider to be a reasonable connection (i.e. which route they'd be prepared to cover) and go with that.

Personally I'd rather take my chances with an early flight from Stansted (even if it is FR who I've used a lot and have rarely suffered delays with) over one from LHR - no matter how reputable the airline was.

Go to Dublin the night before. You might even have fun there.

AB-SO-LU-TELY NOT, NEVER, Don't even think of it.
Ryanair already doesn't deliver on what it promises, and one thing it promises NOT to honor is connections, deadlines, guaranteed arrivals, etc...

Forget the whole idea

Very well put IMHO.

connection
 

Ryanair actually have a good on time record, there is no profit in delay, and a morning flight is unlikely to see the plane delayed by earlier events. Your problem is that if it is late you lose your connection. I'd check carefully the checkin requirements, the rules of the ticket, and the fine print of your travel insurance. One thought, check if AC still fly via Shannon (the Shannon stopover is being discontinued) and go London- Shannon instead, giving you some more time.

As I understand it the OP has already booked the long-haul flight, and it's a cheap flight so it's bound to be "no changes no refunds" - so switching to Shannon is unlikely to be an option.

With a non-changeable/non-refundable ticket and no baggage interlining I would not rely on connections of less than about four hours, regardless of who is running the connecting flight.

BTW, Welcome to FT, njm!

Liability of the insurance company
 

With two hours transfer time our company would probably book this connection since the risk is pretty small. As a private person I don't think I would do it, because I'd risk missing a potentially expensive flight. It would be easier the other way around .

But this idea of involving travel insurance fascinates me. With more and more single leg tickets instead of through-ticketing, maybe this is the way to go in the future??? If connections meet minimum time requirements at the airport, should the insurance company be liable to cover it? Isn't this a case you would want to buy insurance for?

BA does not interline to AC on separate tickets (and AC doesn't interline to non-Star). So you are stuck with separate baggage check-in with all your options (BD would interline with AC, so BD to DUB would be the most viable option). But AC is taking a hard line with missed flights on cheap tickets recently, and probably would make you buy a new ticket if you missed the flight check-in cutoff deadline (I *think* it is 60 min at DUB, but you would have to check with AC, it might be as much as 120 min). Given the scenario, an overnight at DUB seems mandatory unless you can take BD and check the baggage through.

Are you aware of any insurance company which covers this? If so, please post it on FT -- all the travel insurance that I have checked specifically excludes any coverage for this case (probably with good reason, the risk and payout is too high to be a profitable product).

Thank you all so much for your replies! I really appreciated the factual info. and experienced perspective from all the FTers who posted. As I am in fact traveling on my own dime, and since those AC tickets are non-refundable/non-changeable, I will travel back to Dublin the day before my departure, although I was really tempted to gamble with the BA flight from Gatwick.

Two quick follow-ups:
This is very interesting! This could potentially be very helpful, although in my particular case there isn't a viable option with Midlands, based on the flight times.

I did some looking around at a few insurance plans. I did find a policy from Travel Insurance Services (www.travelinsure.com). The premium was $50 for about $1000 of coverage for travel in Europe.

This *might* cover certain delays, as explained below...
There are some exclusions in the policy about the Travel Operator failing to provide the services they're supposed to (the RyanAir clause?!?), and exclusions for bankruptcy (might be important for US airlines!). When I e-mailed the company about applying this coverage to itineraries with two carriers, I got the following response:
I didn't follow up about how much time between flights is "reasonable," because I had decided not to opt for the quick-connection route. But since many of the delays I'm subjected to seem to be the result of airport congestion, etc., I don't know whether insurance for mechanical and weather delays would be very valuable. And of course if one inquired as to how much time between flights is "reasonable" and "sufficient," it would end up that the insurance isn't really necessary....

Anyways, thanks very much once again for all the advice, everyone.

Unfortunately, the information provided is incorrect. BD does not interline with anyone when the booking is on separate tickets:

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/plan...hcheck-in.aspx

SmilingBoy.

Overnight stay in DUB looks like your only safe option. Everything else is asking for trouble.

Ryanair's preferred passengers are those who buy the tickets and then decide not to fly with them. Passengers only inconvenience them !