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Bubble bursting for Ryanair?


MrCanary
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Whilst in the past I have been a very regular flyer with Ryanair and I admit that their fares are still quite good value, I do think their bubble is on the verge of bursting.

Why?

Some things that cost them nothing are now invariably missing from the service they provide. Respect and politeness towards their customers, open and transparent pricing structures and an acceptance that thousands and thousands of people want and need to take luggage with them when they go abroad. Ryanair now have an apparent inability to provide these essential service elements.

Having seen their chief executive interviewed recently on BBC television, I suspect he may be behind many of these failings.

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Some things that cost them nothing are now invariably missing from the service they provide. Respect and politeness towards their customers, open and transparent pricing structures and an acceptance that thousands and thousands of people want and need to take luggage with them when they go abroad.

The pricing structure and transparency are being addressed but how does carrying hundreds of bags cost them nothing? They use far less fuel without any bags, less handlers mean lower airport charges for them and faster turn round times.

Anyway, you can take bags on Ryanair flights, but you have to pay for them and that cost will grow until 50% of its passengers do not take luggage that goes in the hold. I suspect they know their passengers better than you and I and are clearly aiming at the weekend market and not the holidaymaker with three kids.

Of course if you don't want to pay these charges you can always use another airline or if not possible, go back to using whatever means of transport you used to get to France before the lo costs arrived.

As far respect and politeness towards their customers,  I have had nothing but this on the Rodez route, however, what I have seen is rude arrogant plebs who think the cabin staff are there for their for their own exclusive use, wanting a first class service for a eigth class fare.

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[quote user="Ron Avery"]The pricing structure and transparency are being addressed but how does carrying hundreds of bags cost them nothing? They use far less fuel without any bags, less handlers mean lower airport charges for them and faster turn round times.

Anyway, you can take bags on Ryanair flights, but you have to pay for them and that cost will grow until 50% of its passengers do not take luggage that goes in the hold. I suspect they know their passengers better than you and I and are clearly aiming at the weekend market and not the holidaymaker with three kids.

Of course if you don't want to pay these charges you can always use another airline or if not possible, go back to using whatever means of transport you used to get to France before the lo costs arrived.

As far respect and politeness towards their customers,  I have had nothing but this on the Rodez route, however, what I have seen is rude arrogant plebs who think the cabin staff are there for their for their own exclusive use, wanting a first class service for a eigth class fare.[/quote]

Spot on Ron.

What is it with people [8-)] Ryanair prices even if you add bags, booking in, and credit card charges are still a bargain!

I paid £ 46.87 for my return trip next month, no bags, no check-in, no credit card fees, and remember the Government takes £20 of that!

I say thank god we have Ryanair or my quick trip to our house in France would be a non starter.

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[quote user="Ron Avery"]

They use far less fuel without any bags...

[/quote]

I'm not sure that the weight of baggage makes that much difference in the contaxt of a seventy tonne aircraft - less fuel, sure, but much less?

Personally I think that they do it for the money. Say 100 times 15 kg bags equals 1500 kg. Incremental fuel usage would be what, a couple of hundred litres? At around 75 centimes per litre that would amount to €150. But the revenue on 100 bags at €9 each gives a gross profit of €750 or so.

OK, the cost of baggage handling (a couple of chaps on minimum wage for an hour) needs to come off, but at the end of the day it is Ryanair who have the whip hand at most of the airports they use, so they won't pay that much. And having watched the offloading / loading a many times it is clear that it is rarely baggage handling that dictates the turnaround time of their planes.

I very much doubt that Ryanair would be so lacking in business accumen as to ever set out to solely serve the weekender market. That is just too fickle and subject to economic stricture, but the holiday makers will come every year for the main break and they will carry bags regardless. That is an income stream and RA look to exploit it. They are a business.

It is been said a thousand times that if you don't like Ryanair's model, don't use them. Personally I don't like them and I find alternatives, but millions of people are perfectly happy with what they get.

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I agree with the "You can't expect a Rolls-Royce service for a Ford-Fiesta fare" line and if it wasn't for these pared down options, far fewer of us would be flying at all. You pays yer money and takes yer choice.

Politeness costs nothing however. I haven't heard problems with Ryanair staff in particular, although it would not be too surprising if some of them got the wrong message from watching their boss as he does come over on TV as arrogant and always right. Perhaps though he is just straight-talking - unlike smarmy Branson who I wouldn't trust as far as I would like to throw.

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I agree absolutely with Ron on this. Never any problem with the politeness of Ryanair staff but often with some of their more chavvy passengers.

No idea how much fuel is 'wasted' on baggage or the cost of baggage handlers - I guess not much but every little helps Ryanair to make a profit and it is only that which keeps them going.

Andy

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Ball park figures - fuel burn increases by roughly  3% -4% of the extra weight carried for every hour of flight and aviation fuel is running at very very roughly 1000 USD a tonne ( varies significantly from operator to operator depending on hedging and contracts)...I'll leave somebody else to do the cost/benefit analysis but remember the airlines aim to increase aircraft utilisation to the max by reducing turn round time....so perhaps minising hold baggage has got more to do with turnround time than fuel usage or baggage handlers.     

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Ryanair are making so much money from checked in luggage and the resulting required checking in fee, that if everyone took hand luggage they would have to raise their fares to compensate. To discourage this, Ryanair have decided not to allow passengers to revert to the previously allowed two items of hand luggage allowance, although all British airports will permit this by the end of May.

Add to this the restrictive hand luggage weight and size limits compared to some other carriers and it is clear what Ryanair's hidden agenda is and that is to maximise income generated by additional charges and make it as difficult as possible for passengers to avoid them!   

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[quote user="Ron Avery"]

Of course if you don't want to pay these charges you can always use another airline or if not possible, go back to using whatever means of transport you used to get to France before the lo costs arrived.

As far respect and politeness towards their customers,  I have had nothing but this on the Rodez route, however, what I have seen is rude arrogant plebs who think the cabin staff are there for their for their own exclusive use, wanting a first class service for a eigth class fare.

[/quote]

Whilst I wrote it in another thread, I unfortunately did not mention in this one that I still consider the flights are good value - it is the way they hide all the hidden extras that annoys me. But what the heck is wrong with a family consisting of kids and suitcases using their flights? Ryanair has been granted a licence to provide a service; yet as others have mentioned, they do seem to be gearing their operation towards a specific customer - probably the chavs that have been mentioned.

I concede the point about politeness. I was not implying individual members of staff who passengers come into contact with on a daily basis, I was talking about the company as a whole when responding to customer enquiries - their responses leave a lot to be desired.

And Ron, yes I have gone back to using ferries which I consider to be far more civilised. And I certainly agree about the arrogant people often seen on the flights - I wonder which category they slot into? 

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A tad judgemental ? I don't think it helps this topic to start judging who deserves what or their contribution.

BTW Ron, my neighbours take their 4 kids back to see the Irish side of the family. In fact I think they just pay for a couple of cases, the kids clothes don't take up much room and they all seem to get a hand luggage allowance. Works for them - and to be honest I think its a winner compared with the ferry trip which is prone to being a bit choppy, and not much fun.

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This thread is veering towards a social strata judgemental 'bashing' session.

 

With the risk of being boring I refer back to the original post.

I do believe that 'the style' of an organisation is affected (if not actually consciously created ) by its management.

#Ryanair is harsh dismissive and evasive.

#Easyjet is a bit more open and easy going.

Whereas Virgin has a brand value of openness and perceived fairness (though it doesn't compete as 'cheapest')

 

Perhaps more importantly it seems clear to me that Ryanair is anti-family. Whether it is equally clear that it will work for them is moot.

 

 

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Someone will certainly get bashed before he is much older Peter[:)].  You are right is your summary, the problem for many in France is that BA, Virgin etc do not fly to Limoges, Rodez, La Rochelle etc.  I am not sure Ryanair is anti family and I'm not quite sure why I get the personalised replies from some posters, all I am quoting is what Ryanair say on their website. 

Some people are going to get a nasty shock when they book summer flights because the price per checked in bag might be £6 now but its £18 in the summer as one contributor has already found.

Their slightly edited explanation of increased prices is below, my underlining:

"Ryanair, announced that it is increasing checked-in baggage and airport check-in fees with immediate effect for all new bookings as part of its continued drive to encourage passengers to travel without checked in bags and avail of Ryanair’s free of charge online check in.

For all bookings made from today (23rd Jan) onwards, Ryanair’s checked in baggage fee will increase from £5 to £6 per bag and the airport check-in fee will increase from £2 to £3. Ryanair hopes that these increases will encourage more passengers to avoid these charges by travelling with its generous hand luggage allowance (10kg) and checking in free of charge on-line, which also has the benefit of free priority boarding.

Speaking today, Ryanair’s Peter Sherrard said;

“Ryanair remains determined to encourage more and more passengers to travel with carry on luggage only, which allows them to use our free of charge web check-in, skip airport queues and enjoy our priority boarding service free of charge.

“We have already seen huge increases in the numbers of passengers using Ryanair’s internet check-in since we made it free of charge last September. These increased charges will incentivise even more passengers to use our free web check-in service allowing us to cut airport and handling costs and further reduce our guaranteed lowest fares as we grow from 50 million to 60 million passengers in the coming year.

These will not be the last increases in Ryanair’s checked in baggage or airport check in fees, which will continue to increase over time until we reach our objective of persuading at least 50% of all Ryanair passengers to travel with hand luggage only, use our free web check-in service and avoid airport check-in queues. This will in turn allow us to reduce the number airport check-in desks that we rent and the handling staff we employ so that we can continue to pass on these handling savings in the form of Europe’s guaranteed lowest fares”

 

 


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[quote user="Ron Avery"]

So Tag,  tell us all how many years do you have to work to deserve a pension in your cossetted world?

Given that many of us in the 60's left school at 15 and did not have the benefit of 8 or 9 years laying around notching up diplomas and degrees that were in many cases self serving and did nothing to serve society as whole, if we paid for our pensions and retired 8 or 9 years before we had to after 40-42 years of working, without the benefit of 3 months holiday every year, what gives you the right to say what is deserved or undeserved?

[/quote]

If I have read between the lines correctly, the "pigs with undeserved pensions" are more likely to have retired at the age of 40-42 (probably on the grounds of stress) than to have worked 40-42 years.

There are a lot of very healthy, very well off and unstressed ones around!

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The potential concern I have about some low cost carriers, is if the cost cutting culture starts to adversely impinge on safety, as happened in the USA leading to the demise of several low cost carriers including Valuejet, after the Everglades tragedy.

As someone with a flying background, I visit the PPrune forum on a regular basis and it is disconcerting to read posts from unhappy pilots which are a pattern with a couple of low cost carriers complaining of adverse working conditions and a poor safety culture, due the overidding need to maximise aircraft utilisation and minimise costs. 

Unfortunately, in aviation these sort of problems more often than not are only acted upon by the authorities when something goes badly wrong.

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The effect of cost-cutting on safety should be of concern to all travellers.

Surprises me that people who pay £50 plus to use a crowded train to travel across part of Britain will moan about paying an extra few quid for baggage on top of their £30 ticket to fly 2,000 miles across Europe. On top of which when things don't all go to plan, they feel entitled to the same rights for compensation as those who have paid 10 times as much . You can't have it both ways - something has to give. And if that something is safety, then I'm concerned, too.

 

 

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Sorry but that really is such a sweeping comment that I cannot let it pass.

The implication is that

1. No-one should be allowed to retire early no matter how hard they have worked.

2. People who have EARNED a professional qualification are protected (from what?) and privileged. Well they have had the privilege of working hard to qualify and then competing against other professionals in their chosen field. If you think that the workers in your local bank are protected ask them about the low pay and never ending redundancies. They work in a profession.

3. There is a defined 'fair share' of years of work. Who defines that?

4. Only work which 'produces' (what does that mean?) for the rest of society should count.

5. That people who have not trained for a profession for whatever reason are somehow better than professionals!!!

6. Presumably layabouts on the dole are OK as they are not professionals - or maybe they are work avoidance professionals.

Yes there are people out there who have made a lot of money quickly (and honestly) and not just from the professions I might add. I admire them and occasionally have been inspired by them.  The fact that others did not take or make their own opportunities to do so, maybe preferring a better 'work/life balance' in the current vernacular, is mainly within their own control. I applaud those who are prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve their dreams (so long as it is legal) and have no time for those who are jealous of that but not prepared to put themselves out to get it. I am not rich in financial terms but I work hard to have enough to do what I want to do. If I want to do more then I have to work harder or smarter.

My wife, who flogs up from Kent to the West Midlands each week for work, often has the locals tell her that she must be rich as she lives in the South East. If it was that easy they could move down and be rich! They also think she is lucky as she earns a good salary - funny but the harder she works the luckier she gets.

Sorry for the moan and to those who are offended by my predeliction towards meritocracy, but there is no point in people complaining about others achievements - time is better spent for them to figure out how to achieve for themselves.

The only ones I have any sympathy for are those who physically cannot work to support themselves. The harder I work the more I earn and the more tax I pay so the Govenment can, in theory, provide that necessary support.

For the record I am NOT an early retiree yet but would like to be and hence I will be as soon as I have the resources to do so. I will have earnt every penny my pension.

Rant over

Andy

 

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