Ryanair have now extended their reserved seating to cover all flights – but the service is still only available for the first two rows and for the extra legroom seats by the over-wing emergency exits.
The service costs €10 per person per flight sector. Other passengers can still pay €5 for priority boarding.
Does this make you any more likely to fly with Ryanair?
An open blog post to @sbbnews
Now let’s make this clear – this is not an attempt to compare cost per mile or anything related to the fare itself. It is a simple expression of complete frustration at the total confusion caused by the booking system of a network I know and love.
I have visited Swizterland many times, and have always travelled by train, usually taking advantage of one of the four day Swiss travel passes to continue across the country. In Switzerland, the rail network is a natural extension of the flight, as the two main airports of Geneva and Zurich are not just connected to their respective city centres, but also to a huge selection of destinations beyond.
The fact that the Swiss travel network is so well integrated needs little introduction – the trains are really just the start, with onward links provided by bus, ship and even cable car, although these often require a supplement, as do many of the scenic mountain lines.
So what have they done now to incur my wrath? I am trying to do a simple comparison of some onward journeys by rail, just looking at connections between major cities like Geneva and Zurich. I said last week that trying to get public transport information from UK public transport website Transport Direct was like having teeth extracted. Trying to book a train with Swiss Railways is like having your face smashed in, and then going to the dentist for repair work.
Here’s my list of gripes:
Note: Isn’t this all a bit Anglo-centric? After all, Switzerland has 4 official languages, none of which is English?
A Swiss visitor to the UK could indeed quite rightly complain that Virgin Trains or any other operating company don’t offer them the opportunity to book in German or French – and as for Italian or Romansh!
Yet, like it or not, English is the language of international travel. Of course, speaking the local lingo in any destination is always a big bonus, but it helps to have a website which helps you get there in the first place.
In that respect, I’m afraid SBB.ch is a total fail.
Coventry Airport has restarted freight flights, and still has stated ambitions to relaunch passenger flights.
Flightmapping MD Mark Avery was on BBC CWR, discussing the future of the airport.
One possible airline which might be interested in Coventry flights is Jet2, which has slowly been marching south from its well established network of bases in the north (including Scotland and Northern Ireland).
Another speculation would be that easyJet might be interested in starting flights from either Birmingham or Coventry, and that it would be seeking to squeeze the best deal out of whichever airport was most receptive to its demands.
Birmingham Airport might have spare capacity, but it already has a good offering from no-frills airlines, ranging from the bargain basement low cost flights offered by Ryanair, through to mid-market low cost airlines like bmibaby and Monarch, topped off by Flybe, who offer a strong network of domestic routes from Birmingham, together with some flights to key European business and leisure destinations.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has confirmed plans to get rid of two of the three toilets which are fitted as ‘bog’ standard on its Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
What Ryanair Toilets will look like if they go down to one per plane
On the surface of it, this seems like a clever idea – on Ryanair’s shortest routes, like its London to Dublin hops, it is very rare to see all toilets used at the same time. This move will send out the message that Ryanair are even more keen to be seen as a company which operates buses with wings, rather than full service aircraft, so this will encourage people to use the toilets inside the airport terminals.
The move is subject to certification from Boeing.
Of course, this move will cause concern for people with medical conditions that make them need to use the toilet more – at least with two toilets, there should be one free if the other is occupied, but cutting back to one could make things difficult.
The promise is that these changes will only be applied on aicraft which operate the very shortest routes, but it is worth remembering that Ryanair have a single fleet policy, meaning that any aircraft could be use to operate any route at any time, including longer flights down to destinations like the Canary Islands or Greece.
I wouldn’t want to be caught short on one of those flights.
Passengers wanting to avoid the extortionate card handling fees charged by Ryanair will now have to use Ryanair’s own Cash passport from 1 November onwards. This further restricts the payment options for people who don’t want to pay these fees, as up until this date, any prepaid MasterCard was acceptable. So how does the Ryanair Cash passport compare with other cards? Many people have been quick to criticise the outrageously high foreign usage fees (5.75%) this card has, or the £2.50 monthly inactivity fee, but both of these are easily avoidable. Consumer group Which has also dismissed this card, saying that they would rather wait for the day when the government bans airlines from charging extra fees for paying by debit card. That might be something many consumers would welcome, but until (and if) it happens, people will still want to find out the best way of paying for their flights.
To start using the card, passengers must transfer at least £150 in funds, and pay a £6 card activation free, which is refunded in Ryanair travel vouchers (no further fee for using these). The Ryanair Cash passport is managed by Access prepaid worldwide, a subsidiary of Mastercard.
Passengers book flights in the normal way, but unlike all other payment methods, they will not incur any handling fees for flights booked using this card. The card can be topped up online using a UK debit card, and there is no fee for this, and unlike some other prepaid cards, there is also no monthly usage fee, providing the card is used at least once every six months.
Usage
After first of April 2012, transactions using Ryanair’s Cash passport in the UK will attract a fee of 50p. A non-usage fee of £2.50 will be applied if the card is not active for a period of six months, much to the consternation of many Internet commentators. However, these comments are misguided. Many prepaid MasterCards have a monthly usage fee, which applies whether you use the card or not. All you have to do to avoid any ongoing fees were the Ryanair Cash passport is just make sure you use the card in the UK at least once every six months. That sounds reasonable to us.
Foreign transactions
Again, much of the criticism at the Ryanair Cash passport has been because it attracts a whopping 5.75% transaction fee for any usage abroad. Sure, this is outrageously expensive, but the whole point of having this card is to avoid Ryanair’s extortionate card handling fees, not to get the best rates on using your card abroad — something which is also highly unlikely that your bank will offer anyway. The Ryanair Cash passport is denominated in Sterling, not in euros, so, like Sterling travellers cheques, it makes little sense to expect to use this abroad anyway, as there are plenty of much better value cards available which are denominated in euros, so you know exactly where you stand in terms of costs.
Are there are other ways of avoiding Ryanair’s extortionate card handling charges?
Ryanair vouchers
Don’t be fooled into thinking that the Ryanair voucher is one of them. Firstly, you will have to pay a £5 administration fee to buy the voucher, which is only £1 less than the usual card fee. Vouchers can only be used once, so if you’re booking flights which cost less than the value of the voucher, you will lose the difference. If your flights cost more than the voucher value, then you will have to pay the difference, and unsurprisingly this difference will then attract the very handling fees you are trying to avoid. So in that respect, the voucher is lose-lose.
The vouchers can only be used by the named beneficiary, so that they are much less flexible than a prepaid MasterCard which can be used to book flights for anyone. However, there is one potential advantage of paying by voucher, and that is that a handling fee is only levied once for the cost of the voucher, whereas Ryanair’s credit card booking fees are levied on each individual flight sector, so a couple making a return trip will have to pay four times. This theoretically makes the vouchers a better way of paying than a credit or debit card, but you would still have to predict the exact cost that your Ryanair flights are going to come to in order to make the vouchers worthwhile, and this can be extremely tricky as the yield management system used by Ryanair and all other low-cost airlines means that prices can rise and fall at a moments notice. Why go to all this trouble, and still pay a handling fee, when you can avoid a handling fee using Ryanair’s Cash passport?
Of course, we’d hate to live in a world where every single corporation dictated the rules of how you pay them, but luckily very few companies behave like Ryanair. As long as Ryanair’s business model makes it possible to explore all kinds of unique corners of Europe at a cost which is often many times cheaper than their rivals, then this hassle is something that will be worth tolerating.
What about the Ryanair credit card?
The Ryanair credit card, managed by Santander bank, promises to reward users with up to 5 return flight vouchers during the first year. Users must still pay all applicable taxes fees and charges for the flight they wish to take, and unlike Ryanair vouchers, payers by Ryanair credit card will still attract a handling fee of six pounds per person per flight sector, which is no different to payment by any other card.
So why bother with a Ryanair credit card? The terms and conditions clearly state that these free flights will only available on selected routes, and that there will also be many blackout periods when the free flights will not be available. Considering how many times Ryanair launches special offers, we think that these free flights are of little use, so you might as well just to check for the latest special offers like any other passenger.
From the way we see it, the Ryanair credit card is merely an extension of the Ryanair moneymaking machine, and little benefit to consumers. On the other hand, the Ryanair cash passports let’s Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary paint himself as being the one in the temple, throwing over the tables of the money-changing rip-off banks, who he says are the route cause of his airline charging such high payment fees. Yet the much despised British banks still let you trade with them on your terms – take none of their add-on services and don’t go overdrawn, and they are still free to use. Ryanair meanwhile will continue to dictate the terms on which you do business with it, because for the time being at least, it still can.
Update 6th Oct – the card application page is now live. Note that the card is offered by Raphaels Bank, not Access Worldwide.
View Copenhagen Airport Map here
We have always considered that finding a flight is only one part of the journey, and that the onward land connection to your final destination needs to be considered at the time of booking, because finding out later on that you could have flown to a more convenient airport is far too late!
We have produced a sample map showing onward rail connections from Copenhagen airport, and we intend to roll this out across a number of key hub airports in Europe, together with a limited number of worldwide hub cities such as New York, Chicago, Washington DC and Tokyo.
Copenhagen is interesting for two reasons — firstly, if you are trying to get to Malmo in neighbouring Sweden, then it is usually much easier to find flights to Copenhagen and make the short trip across the Oresund bridge. Although Ryanair have recently announced that they will restart flights to Malmo from London Stansted, it will still be quicker to reach central Malmo from Copenhagen by public transport, as the train service is both fast and frequent.
However, whenever one city airport is an alternative for another city, it can often work in the other direction as well, especially if a low-cost airline like Ryanair is offering substantially cheaper fares. Surprisingly, they have not marketed Malmo as ‘Copenhagen East’, even though it is a closer alternative to Copenhagen than the Slovakia and capital Bratislava is to Vienna, which they do market as Vienna East.
Heading west in Denmark, it is possible to reach all other major cities in Denmark within a relatively short time. Although all of the cities on the Jutland peninsular which have commercial airports offer flights to London, there are currently no commercial flights to the UK from Odense. Apart from Lego capital Billund, which still has flights from Edinburgh, only Copenhagen offers a good network of flight choices from UK regional airports.
If, like most flightmapping.com users, you aren’t starting your journey near London, you have two main choices to get to this part of the world — take a connecting flight, usually via Copenhagen, but this involves a very indirect journey. Some connections are also available via Amsterdam. Alternatively, you might find it much easier and cheaper to fly to Copenhagen, and then take the train. All cities in Denmark which have airports have direct train connections to Copenhagen, except for Billund, which can only be reached by train and bus, via Vejle. Many train services to western Denmark offer through connections directly from Copenhagen airport itself, without having to change in central Copenhagen.
For further information about trains in Denmark, visit the DSB journey planner – although we have always found DB (German Railways) to be much easier to navigate. Both are in English.
A note about the Oresund bridge — if, like us, you have an interest in architecture and engineering, then you will probably want to include a crossing of the Oresund bridge in your visit to Denmark and southern Sweden. In our view, this bridge is perhaps third only to the Millau Viaduct and the Forth Rail Bridge (see Edinburgh Airport Approach!). Note that this cable stayed structure has two decks, with the railway running below four lanes of highway. To get the best views, you will need to use the highway. Details about travel across the Oresund Bridge from Copenhagen Airport are here. Note – Copenhagen Airport is right next to the Oresund Bridge – you can travel straight out and back, but we at least suggest a visit to the Turning Torso in Malmo!
Still wondering how Michael O’Leary is going to respond to the new Berlin Airport.
Will he accept a rise in charges, or will he try and operate from the old SXF terminal.
It is quite unprecedented for a city to effectively shut 3 airports to build one new one (Boris take note?). The closest alternative will be Leipzig ‘Berlin South’ – LEJ. A mere 176km away – a stretch even for the Ryanair boss’ imagination!