Shares in airlines slumped today as budget carrier Ryanair reported an
85% fall in first-quarter net profit and warned it could plunge into the red for the full year.
No, it's because of the 93% hike in the price of oil.
And they're actually carrying more people than ever.
So, that sort of blows your argument out of the water, wouldn't you say?
Since Ryanair is a budget airline anyway, wouldn't your criticism of them be a bit more valid if it was framed in terms of value rather than absolute service? You'd _expect_ a more expensive airline to provide better service.
My experience, however, is that they generally don't. Maybe yours is different. But we don't know because you don't deign tell us.
How long have you been a Ryanair shareholder ?
I agree with Norman for once. I didn't think I'd ever fly with them, but when they were offering free flights to Dublin and some friends persuaded me to go I couldn't resist. Of course nothing is ever quite what it seems with them, "free" was actually 2p, (1p each way), but I didn't make an issue of this!
They don't allocate seat numbers, which makes boarding so much quicker (no dopey people wandering around trying to find their seat, no "excuse me that's my seat" followed by rearrangement of the overhead lockers etc). It was the most efficient airline I've ever flown on in terms of lack of pissing about at the airport.
The seats are quite narrow and I wouldn't recommend them if you're fat, but legroom was reasonable (I'm 5'11").
There wasn't even the usual attempt to flog rip-off "duty frees" which most other airlines seem obsessed with.
You need to read their T&C's very carefully - for instance they don't allow baggage allowance pooling within a party which is an obvious attempt to rip off people who haven't read the T&C's properly. Also the price you are initially quoted is rarely the price you pay - they usually charge surcharges on even debit card payments and per passenger per leg!! But they do sometime do deals where all that's included (like the one I got).
Someone at work flies with them on business all the time, even though he could use BA if he wanted, because he reckons they are the most efficient!
And I agree with Andy Pandy for once...
We've used SqueezyJet quite a lot, and imagined Ryanair would be much worse. But the opposite was true - cleaner, more modern (I think?) fleet. No unnecessary messing about. They were very relaxed about weight of cabin bags - so long as dimensions were ok. And the "priority boarding thing is done sensibly - 2 queues, instead of EJ's system of letting everyone crowd around the gate, so no-one can get to the front when called.
However, I suspect all these firms lose out on in-flight sales cos, being a very tight fit, there's no way you can get your money out of your pocket. (Maybe the trick is to open the window...)
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