I heard it was going to be Bangor in Maine - then when (not if) O'LearyAir breaks US rules and has to be escorted to an airfield by fighter jets, the passengers won't have any reason to complain

CO does not have enough widebody jets, so it's using their 757-200 with winglets to fly TPAC. Configured with BusinessFirst and AVOD it's pretty nice (only flew this bird domestically).

As I understand it, 737 is not really going to make money as you cannot get enough pax to pay for fuel etc.

EmailKid

Please make sure that you are insured to cover ALL eventualities if this service does get off the ground. Ryanair is the no 1 carrier for sneaky hidden charges and every little thing is surcharged .......... including checking in with luggage!!

I would be particularly wary of any TATL service offered by them, not particularly for their service in the air, but because I have used them regularly in the past and find that their ground service is uneven, unreliable and often staffed by employees who are not being paid enough to treat the passengers in a pleasant manner.

Ryanair only have 737-800s which I would have thought would be hard pressed to have the fuel capacity for TATL ...........

Not a route/company combination that I would feel I could trust.

Perhaps that is about to change for a smaller net cost than buying/leasing new aircraft?

Ryanair has announced plans to mount a fresh takeover bid for Aer Lingus in a move that it says will create "one strong Irish airline group".

Ryanair, which already owns almost 30% of its rival, says it will be offering €1.40 per share through its wholly owned subsidiary, Coinside Ltd.

It says this represents a premium of around 28% over the average closing price during the 30 days up to November 28th.

Ryanair says it plans to merge the two airlines, but keep them operating as separate entities with distinctive brands.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhididgbojey/

Insurance won't cover any of their extra charges (which I'm sure are in their T&Cs somewhere) and they have no problems about going bust, IIRC they had higher profits than BA last year!

Perhaps I didn't word this as correctly as I should have ....... what I was thinking of was the additional expenses often incurred when Ryanair cancel a flight at short notice, often in the middle of nowhere, and passengers need to find accommodation and make alternative arrangements for their onward flight.

I have no delusions that Ryanair and Michael O'Leary will remain part of commercial aviation for the foreseeable future, and never implied that they would go bust. What I AM saying is that I do not trust their ability to fulfil their obligations either in the air or on the ground, and would not trust any long haul journey to them.

Most of their flights do arrive at their destinations (albeit eventually if there are problems with winter weather or knock-on delays) but I wouldn't count on them if I had to be anywhere at a guaranteed time without a back up plan and a good time safety margin.

I know the US provided the model on which Ryanair is based - SouthWest airlines - but how many of you Flyers actually use it when you have so much choice of companies and fares ........... I would caution potential Ryanair users who live in the US and who have never taken Ryanair in Europe that low prices might be the only thing in its favour ....................... It does not always enjoy a good press in Europe, especially for its miraculous ability to delay conforming to EU laws on pricing and advertising!

I'm no defender of Ryanair, but your rantings cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

Well, that's good to know. I'm not aware of any of their flights failing to arrive. :rolleyes:
It is a matter of record that they are the most punctual airline in Europe.
... which they now do.

In the end, you get what you pay for. IMO, you can get far more than you pay for, as I have several round trip reservations booked at the right time for an all-in price of 2p - that's £0.02 or $0.03. :)

Well Roger, I stand corrected! But I should like to make the point that I was making observations and not ranting. If I were to rant, you would be in no doubt that that was my intention when I wrote the post.

Ryanair flights do not arrive at their destinations if they are cancelled. This does happen - but yes I'll admit that that could happen to the no. 5 bus as well.

Perhaps they may be the most punctual airline in Europe, but it depends on who is collating the statistics, the margin of lateness allowed, and the fact that Ryanair build in time into their timetables to allow for delays so that they can always take advantage of an 'on time arrival' with their trumpet announcement on landing.

They have FINALLY followed the EU directive to put the total fare for their tickets on their hoarding advertising, but this does not always show as a breakdown on their website because of computer system errors they say, but this does not allow for their charges such as priority boarding, luggage check in or credit card debiting.

I am delighted that you - and many others - have been able to benefit from these wonderful fares, and I am sure that they certainly are available .... but I have never managed to 'bag' one. Now this is not really sour grapes, so don't think I'm ranting because I'm not! I have benefitted from 'free' tickets, but have always been nabbed for considerable taxes flying from BSL or FKB. I just wish all those who have got the bargains happy landings and many of them.

Wirelessly posted (The Roaming Phone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

WN may be the original LCC, but it's hardly anything like RyanAir, AirAsia, Jetstar or the other modern LCCs with the a-la-carte pricing model. In fact, WN seems to be among the last airlines to *not* adopt the charge-for-everything system--you still get bags, a little snack, and a friendly smile at no extra charge (at least last time I checked). Actually, I don't think that since SkyBus went under the US has had an LCC in the model of European/Asian LCCs...unless you count the legacies, given their adoption of the a-la-carte model.

What WN is very good at is the LC part of the LCC model--they keep their costs low with good business practices and a thrifty mindset. They also have a simple presentation to the customer--a simple pricing system, a simple website, and a simple (to the customer) route network (mostly point-to-point). They're successful because they make flying simple and they make people like them.

I don't hear too many people on many other LCCs (who are really less LCCs and more RMCs--revenue-maximizing carriers) walk away from the airport and say what a surprisingly pleasant experience it was.

In reply to the poster who replied to me and pointed out the RTW possibilities using existing LCCs (sorry, going back to that post is hard to do in the wireless interface), is Condor or the other one you mentioned considered an LCC? They fly to ANC (seasonally), and fares between here and FRA/DUS are hardly cheap (though you can find $700rts in shoulder season--much better--and shorter--than the $1000+ on the legacies). Can you really cross the Pond on LFCs (Low Fare Carriers, my new name for the a-la-carters that advertise--but rarely deliver--those 2p fares)?

If RyanAir goes TATL and DX starts their STN service, I wonder how much cheaper than the $1500-1600 you quoted you'd be able to get to Oz and back...

Arriving at the destination
 

I think that a further clarification is in order here to overcome some possible ambiguities that these statements may convey. If the intended meaning of "failing to arrive" is that they do not land safely then the statement is true as no Ryanair aircraft has ever been involved in any incident where passengers or crew were injured or worse (even if some flights had to make emergency landings, most recently in Ciampino).

On the other hand, it is a well known fact that a non-negligible percentage of Ryanair flights to not land at the originally planned destination and end up being diverted to other airports, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away from the original destination.

Most of the times Ryanair's excuse is that the weather at the destination did not allow a safe landing there even though other B737 aircraft, operated by other airlines, are not equally affected. In some cases, the choice of diversion airport is quite ridiculous. For example, a flight to Hahn (near Frankfurt) will use Cologne/Bonn to divert instead of Frankfurt/am Main airport. Once diverted, the passengers are most frequently abandoned there, often when most airport facilities are closed and transportation is scarce.

If this happened in the US, Ryanair would have been served with a class action lawsuit within days. However, in Europe, Ryanair benefits from the fact that it is very difficult to launch a class action law suit, leaving each one of its victims faced with the prospect of fighting Ryanair's legal team on their own. Most people quickly give up.

It's very unfortunate that Ryanair gets away with this and let no one argue that this is a case of "you get what you pay for" because nowhere in Ryanair's contract of carriage does it state that Ryanair reserves the right to abandon me at some foreign, unknown, desolate location if it so suits them.

If you're prepared to fly with Ryanair as if it was a form of aviation-style hitch hiking then you'll be fine. You'll be prepared for the consequences. However, if you plan to use Ryanair as a form of reliable transportation and you make other arrangements which depend on you being at a specific place, at a specific time then you may be in for a shock.

Honestly, I may be way off, but I'm pretty sure that no 737 variant has the range to reach TATL from anywhere in western Europe, including SNN. It *might* be able to reach NYC or even IAD from SNN, but that's got to be pushing it, big-time, and a significant percentage of those flights would probably have to stop at Labrador or somewhere.

I could be wrong--I'm not a pilot--but I just have my doubts.

Now, the 757--that is enjoying a longhaul revival with winglets and can reach just about anywhere on the east cost from just about anywhere west of Munich.

Well, since you don't believe my previous post, I'll just let you eat crow ;)

Here's a link to my previously posted
PrivatAir on behalf of KLM flight from AMS to IAH.

Again, as I posted, this is not fully loaded with pax, it's Business only configuration.

EmailKid, straightening the record one poster at a time :D

Guys, guys - nobody is suggesting using 737s!

This article explains the concept:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...britishairways

There's a HUGE thread in the BA forum about BA's upcoming LCY-JFK A319 service, with refuelling at SNN westbound, nonstop eastbound.

Wow--I was way off. Emailkid, crow tastes a lot like chicken ;).

That's interesting, but in hindsight, I should have known that a 737 could make it, since a Boeing Business Jet is essentially a 737 and has quite extensive range.