Flightblogging.com

Last Thursday, the Times carried an article stating 20 reasons why passengers should not fly with Ryanair. Of course, the article made one or two good points that we would agree with, but here is our own response to this article:

1) 1p flights are available, but don’t expect to find cheap flights to Dublin when Ireland or U2 are playing at Croke Park!

Special offers have traditionally been used by retailers to get people through their doors, and Ryanair’s 1p flights are no different to this. One thing to bear in mind is that they don’t always set aside a certain number of seats on each flight to sell at the lowest possible price. Why on earth should they give away seats for nothing if there is a big event on in the destination city? The small print on their current special offers list makes it clear that you will not find cheap flights on a Friday or Sunday, and it also gives the blackout dates to save you the bother of searching during the busy periods. Look out for dates which seem to be set aside for the 1p flights, and be prepared for the same date to be offered for the outbound and return flight. How do you get round this? Simply fly out to one destination, and fly home from a different airport. See our article on playing Ryanair at their own game for further explanation about this.

2) Plenty of other cheap flights are available — if you know when and where to look

Just because you can’t get a flight for 1p doesn’t mean that other good offers aren’t available. If you really do hate Ryanair, then just make a commitment that you won’t allow them the chance to make any money from you. For example, if you book any flight departing the UK, then the first £10 will have to be handed over to the government for Air Passenger Duty, and there will usually be a similar amount given to the airport as a passenger handling fee. As long as you turn up for your flight, Ryanair won’t be able to avoid losing money on these charges.

You can also avoid the tedium of searching through a whole month at a time to find the best possible dates by using a site like Skyscanner.

3) All of the extra charges are avoidable — including the credit and debit card service fee

We really do wonder why people complain so much about the extra charges for things like luggage and credit card handling fees. Why not spend the time un-packing your bag, and only taking things you will really need for your holiday? People tend to bitch about Ryanair not offering any cheap flights for weekend breaks, and then complain at the same time that they are getting overcharged for taking their luggage. Surely you can get away for a couple of days with just a small carry on bag? If you are going away for a little bit longer, it might be cheaper to use a launderette halfway through your holiday — doing so will support the local economy where you are staying, and not Ryanair!

All you need to do to avoid the card handling fees is to get yourself an electron card — see our article about avoiding card charge rip-offs.

4) If you do carry luggage, why do you need to take more than 15 kg?

Some people might deride Ryanair for having a 15 kg luggage limit, but we would again advise travelling light, and of course weighing your bag before you leave for the airport. That way, you can avoid any nasty surprises at the bag drop.

5) So what if Ryanair’s website is rubbish, book your flights and go off and enjoy your holiday!

We have always felt that aesthetically speaking, Ryanair’s website is a nasty piece of work. But so what, it isn’t there to be hung in the Tate Gallery, it is there to make as much money from advertising revenue as possible. That’s why you’ll even see adverts for Ryanair’s rivals on the booking page — Ryanair’s bean counters have worked out that they have more to gain by doing this than they have to lose.

6) An early start means you will see more

I’m not much of an early riser either, but having to leave the UK at some ungodly hour means that you will also get your destination much earlier as well. This means more time to explore. The Times article then complains about anti-social flights later in the evening, complaining about arriving late at night and not finding anywhere to stay — has the author never heard of the concept of booking hotels in advance?

7) One person’s middle of nowhere is another’s quirky place to explore

A few years ago, I made the trek out to Frankfurt Hahn, and had a pleasant afternoon’s train journey through the Mosel Valley before catching my flight home. Granted, Frankfurt international airport is much closer to the city centre, but I wasn’t going to pay hundreds of pounds more, especially when I only wanted a one-way flight. There is always a way of making your trip interesting — besides, the so-called Ryanairports only account for a small percentage of Ryanair’s total destination list — the definition is of course a little bit subjective, but we would say that there are only about 10 airports which really are in the middle of nowhere, when compared to the main city airport which other airlines serve.

No one makes you buy anything on board

If you don’t like the prices of Ryanair’s on-board service, then just don’t buy anything. We don’t ever hear people complaining about trains having trolleys on board (or stations charging for toilets for that matter), so why should airlines be any different?

9) You can always block out any annoying announcements with noise cancelling headphones

Of course, these announcements are an annoying form of noise pollution, but Ryanair are not the only offender here. Thankfully, they can be mitigated by purchasing a pair of noise cancelling headphones — savvy travellers are usually the ones you will see with a pair of Bose headphones. They don’t come cheap, but they do provide you with in-flight bliss, and they will also protect you from that other in-flight irritation which can disturb you on just about any airline — the screaming baby.

10) Free seating means you don’t have to pay to get a good seat, so just turn up to the gate early, or quit worrying about it.

Those airlines which offer assigned seating are increasingly charging customers to get the seats they want. Ryanair offer priority boarding for £3 each way — this is one extra which is worth considering if you are travelling as part of a group, but bear in mind that many other passengers think the same way, so you might be just as well off without it. Remember too that some airports will require you to travel by bus between the terminal and the aircraft, and that people often board the plane from the front and the rear, so that seat which you have your eyes on might end up getting taken by somebody else.

At the end of the day, what’s the worst that could happen? You might end up having to sit next to someone you don’t know for a couple of hours, but that can either mean a possibility for an interesting conversation, or an opportunity to keep yourself to yourself and read or listen to music. Either way, it is not as if you are being asked to share the same bed with someone against your will, so why get too worried about it?

11) When the flights are so cheap, why bother seeking a refund?

I really do wonder what all the fuss is about with people who expect a refund off Ryanair. Even if something does go horribly wrong, they will only usually be liable for the cost you have paid for your flight. No airline is ever going to cover you for the consequential losses (i.e. hotel bookings, car hire etc) you might suffer if your flight is delayed.

There’s two ways round this — either get a fully comprehensive travel insurance policy which will cover you in the event of such problems occurring, or just accept that from time to time things will go wrong, but that more often than not, your journey will be trouble-free. Despite all the hype, Ryanair have fewer delays and cancellations, and fewer lost bags than any other major European airline.

12) Flights can be so cheap that you can book them without even having to worry about whether you will take the trip or not.

Why not take advantage of Ryanair’s special offers, and book yourself a few trips away. You can always decide closer to the time whether or not you can actually take the trip. If you don’t turn up, you will just lose the small fee you have paid your flight, and you could probably book 3 or four special offer flights for the price of just one return flight with other airlines.

13) No other airline can boast of putting places like Alghero, Haugesund and Zweibrucken on the map.

Just as we think we have all destinations covered, Ryanair open up somewhere new that we’ve never heard of. The intrepid traveller could spend months if not years hopping between all the different places Ryanair serves, and never get bored. As well as connecting the better known places on the European map, Ryanair really do have the ability to open up the economies of numerous undiscovered regional destinations. Of course, there is a flip side to this — routes can get dumped just as quickly, so perhaps this should give you even more impetus to go out and explore somewhere you see on Ryanair’s destination list that you think might be interesting.

14) Other people clicking on adverts and buying extra services means that budget minded travellers like myself can travel for next to nothing

Ryanair make just about as much money from ancillary revenues (bookings made through adverts on their website, responses to e-mail offers, in-flight sales etc) than they do from the flights themselves, so they can still give away flights for next to nothing on the assumption that many passengers will then book a hotel or hire car with them. Of course, there is no obligation for anyone to do so, giving budget minded travellers like myself the opportunity to travel for pennies, without any extra costs.

15) Ryanair tend to offer only one brand of car hire, airport parking etc — so you can come to a site like ourselves and find a lot more opportunities to get a better deal!

A lot of the time, Ryanair are relying on people’s laziness so that they can make money on extra services. For Example, Ryanair only offer car hire through Hertz, or airport parking through BCP — who is to say that these are always going to be the cheapest?

16) Ryanair’s growth and dealmaking has been so prolific that they also now fly from major airports, so I can get cheap flights from Birmingham airport, which is just 10 minutes away from my house.

When Ryanair first came onto the scene, they concentrated virtually exclusively on out of the way low-cost airports. As they have grown, they have expanded into other major airports which have had room for them, often taking advantage of cheap off-peak slots. So if you are looking for cheap flights from the UK, then Ryanair now have a major presence at airports like London Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh, as well is their more traditional hubs such as Stansted, Liverpool and Glasgow Prestwick. On mainland Europe, you’ll now find Ryanair offering cheap flights to Bologna instead of Forli, and offering a whole range of cheap flights to Spain using airports like Madrid, Malaga and Alicante, which we would previously have thought they would avoid completely.

17) Some people might criticise Ryanair for their environmental record, but mile for mile, they are one of the greenest airlines in the sky.

Whatever opinions one might have about the wider environmental impacts of flying, Ryanair exclusively use the next generation Boeing 737-800, which is one of the most efficient available, in terms of fuel burned per passenger per mile. Ryanair’s commitment to low costs and either using uncongested airports, or using major airports when they are less busy, helps to reduce their fuel burn further.

Whilst some commentators might criticise Ryanair’s aggressive marketing policy, their continued usage of special offers ensures that Ryanair’s aircraft are kept as full as possible.

18) If you want to fly with another airline, then you can at least be grateful that Ryanair’s presence in the market has brought down costs for everyone.

Flightmapping.com certainly isn’t here to act as Ryanair’s mouthpiece — they certainly do enough of their own publicity, even if they do give us plenty to comment on. So we should just say that we’d love you to spend as much time as possible on Flightmapping.com, and book cheap flights with some of the airlines that pay to advertise on our website (Ryanair don’t).

Whoever you choose to fly with, don’t forget that Ryanair have helped make flights cheap for everyone. Just this weekend I was having dinner with the owner of another cheap flights website and a colleague within our industry, and he was talking about taking flights to Salzburg with Ryanair for £80, which I regarded as expensive. If he had said that 10 years ago, I would have told him he got a bargain. As it happened, he only booked his flights are few days beforehand, and was travelling over the weekend, so he’s still got a good deal.

19) When Michael O’Leary said he was thinking about talking for toilet usage, he was just taking the piss

This so-called ‘idea’ was suggested jokingly by Mike Rutter of Flybe back in September 2006, and it comes up from time to time. As usual, O’Leary’s outburst was well timed to grab headlines and promote Ryanair’s latest offer. A few days later, he confirmed that they had no plans to introduce such a scheme.

20) I don’t care what other people think of Michael O’Leary, I have quite a lot of time for the guy

Somehow I really don’t think that Michael O’Leary is bothered that some people love to hate him, as long as they are always talking about Ryanair. I have met him on three occasions, and always found him to be extremely charming and good-humoured. Considering the amount of distrust that figures like Sir Fred Goodwin have made us have in The City, then we really should be grateful to have people like Michael O’Leary (and let’s not forget other aviation pioneers like Sir Stelios and Sir Richard) around to shake things up a bit and tell it as it is.

I don’t want to give Ryanair any more publicity than I need to, but I’ll have to admit that my next flight will be with them, so I hope I won’t have to eat any of my words. Out of all the times I’ve flown with Ryanair so far, I’ve never had more than about a 15 minute delay, so maybe my time is due!