Ryanair

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
25,037
Been meaning to flag this up for a few days as it's gone without comment and I can't find the original thread...

It turns out Ryanair WILL soon be charging £1 to use on board toilets after all. So much for it being a joke.

The plan is to remove two of the three toilets creating space for six more seats and charge for using the cludge.

My wife recently tried to book flights to Dublin for her and our daughter. The flights were something like £3.99 but the total cost was looking more expensive than the cost of two nights in a good hotel in the city centre. Needless to say, they didn't go.
 
They have also started to charge £30 to recover the taxes if you do not take a flight. They are not alone in this apparently, but do not go out of their way to publicize the fact.
 
I booked a return flight Dublin to Gatwick for three in August for €36 all in. €1 Each way, no taxes, no check in charges, €30 credit card charge. An Aer Lingus flight on the same day would have cost over €200 euro. That gives us about 160 visits to the toilet before we start losing out.

The Aircoach to Dublin Airport wont be a lot less than the flights and the return trip on Gatwick Express to get into London will cost nearly twice as much. Methinks you are targetting the wrong company for lack of value.
 
Last edited:
I take it that wasn't a weekend flight, Mel?

No doubt in certain circumstances you can bag a bargain. Is there any way of avoiding the credit card charge? Probably not. It cannot possibly cost E30 to process a credit card payment so why charge that? Surely it would be more transparent for them to charge a nominal 1% or so but charge E30 for the flights?

I my wife's situation, a 'cheap' return flight was ending up costing more than the Aer Lingus flights.

At the Open Meeting I paid £50 for return flights Glasgow-Bristol (only to end up unable to travel) with BA (or was it BMI), a fraction of what the train fare would have been. So there are bargains with other operators.
 
It's not a weekend flight, no. And I agree transparency is not a strong point, prior to the point that you that you press the buy button.

If you are flexible with your travelling dates they are always cheaper, if you are not, they are cheaper 90 something % of the time.

I prefer to fly with Aer Lingus. For a flight to London I would go with them if the total bill (usually for 2 or 3 people) was within €50ish, depending on the mood, more than Ryanair. I nearly always end up on Ryanair.
 
u always have to check, and compare, but sometimes just too cheap to miss out. in germany that does include travel to really exotic airports, NEVER in the city they claim (like London Stansted; i mean, how near is London?) but started charging for online-check-in, which I think is a real joke.
 
The moment that vile company threw blind people off one its flights (not midair admittedly) I vowed never to touch them with a bargepole

Quite afew surveys have demonstrated that they are often more expensive than alternatives, but i would rather pay more than give cash to that self obsessed mummys boy
 
I also go out of my way to avoid them.

Is it true you can't check in at airports with them any longer?
 
They serve a purpose, to get from A to B as cheap as possible. You know what you're getting when you book (naff all). I use them from time to time but haven't found them as cheap as they used to be, once got a return to Milan for 2p inc taxes!

Don't see why people moan about them, I've found their punctuality to be exceptional when using them. Charging for the toilets is a bridge too far though.

On the Stansted issue, Stansted is officially labelled London Stansted by everyone, not just Ryanair. BAA and everyone uses this term, the same applies to Luton.
 
I just hope if I'm on Ryne Air flight I will not find an Afgan Hanging about in toilets, as you might on a British Army coach, it would be bad if common curtacy was not extened to holding the door for the next person after you'v warmed the seat for them
 
I'm not saying you can't get bargains with Ryanair and I would probably fly with them if they were much cheaper but if there was not a lot in it I'd probably pay a wee bit more to fly with a more customer-friendly airline. It's a bit like shopping in Lidl rather than Asda or Tesco. I don't usually shop at Asda but the last twice I've had to go in for something I could get elsewhere I was very impressed with thier customer service. I asked a worker to point me in the direction of the item I was looking for and they escorted me all the way and explained all their lines in that kind of product. I had a similar experience in Sainsbury's too.

Ryanair is a bit like the old Glasgow SMT bus company. 'Come oan, get aff.'
 
If I'm on my own, then 99% of the time I'd take getting from A to B as cheap as possible over any level of Customer Service. For me booking with Ryanair is a game. I learnt the rules so I can maximise my saving. If for any reason part of that game doesn't meet my requirements for travel I know to look elsewhere.

For the record, if you want to avoid the card fee: apply for a Ryanair Visa card, use it to book your flights then immediately pay off the balance with your preferred method of payment. Whether you deem that worth the hassle is up to you.
 
on the stansted issue I do know that just wanted to explain my point. been to dublin with ryan-air and thats the main airport, and am fine with stansted for newmarket anyway, but in germany you a hard pressed to find an airport thats actually near the city they claim to fly to. bremen might be the nearest with about 20miles to town center, hamburg-lübeck is a joke, as lübeck is about 60miles away and you need the same amount for bus/taxi service to actually get to hamburg. hahn is nowhere near frankfurt, too, wietze nowhere near düsseldorf. you certainly need to calculate them costs to get a clear picture.
 
If you're ever flying to London and get the chance to fly into London City Airprot for close to the same price as one of the other airports, do it. It's a great wee airport.
 
DO - next year I'm attending a Saudi Oil Co. reunion in Edinburgh and will want to fly out of Gatwick (and back again three days later). Would you, offhand, know which airlines would serve this purpose best, please? I think I've flown Ryanair from Spain - don't they play a blast on a (recorded) bugle when they land on time? Pretty sure that was them! They were fine - no worse than many I've been on, and better than Monarch, which had the smallest seats known short of cruel and unusual treatment.
 
"A" bottle for all that way, Andy?? Shurely shome mistake! Actually, if there was a 'flyer' which did it in one, I'd go for it, but I imagine the train fare would work out at around the cost of three weeks in Florida! Thanks, DO and G-G - Sahfampton's a bit far away from Brighton for me, but I'll certainly look over the BA and Easyjet options.
 
I'd book 3 months in advance and get advance train tickets. Buy Brighton - St Pancras on First Capital Connect and St Panc - Edinburgh on National Express East Coast.

Lovely journey too.
 
Gamla Stan said:
I'd book 3 months in advance and get advance train tickets. Buy Brighton - St Pancras on First Capital Connect and St Panc - Edinburgh on National Express East Coast.

Lovely journey too.
Click to expand...

and there's alway's a chance of meating nice people on train journey's:<3:
 
Gamla Stan said:
I'd book 3 months in advance and get advance train tickets. Buy Brighton - St Pancras on First Capital Connect and St Panc - Edinburgh on National Express East Coast.

Lovely journey too.
Click to expand...

Nothing like a good train journey. Great thinking and/or reading time.

I took quite a nice journey on Sunday, from Zurich to Geneva, not the regular route, instead via Neuchatel (which looks very nice) which meant the train spent quite some time very close to the lake and mountains, very enjoyable.
 
Back
Top