Ryanair is quite possibly the most complained about airline. Operating more than 1,800 daily flights from 76 bases, connecting 200 destinations in 31 countries on a fleet of over 300 Boeing 737 aircraft and delivering Europe’s No.1 on-time performance, I suspected the source of these complaints must be passengers who expect a full service product for a low cost fare. I had to go through the booking process and review this airline myself, could it really be that bad?

Let’s start by clarifying a few myths and confirming some facts.

1)      The seating is tight.  Wrong. The seat pitch is 30 inch which is a whole 2 inches more than the likes of Airasia, Monarch and Thomson and one inch more than Easyjet, jet2 and Germania to name a few.  Really tall? Book yourself an extra legroom seat as shown in the image below. 

2)      They charge you to print a boarding card at the airport. Correct. So at the final stage of booking when it clearly states you need to print your boarding card to avoid charges at the airport you should really do it.

3)      They charge for baggage. Correct. Again, through the booking process it clearly states that you need to pay for checked luggage. It also clearly states on your boarding pass what the size restrictions for carry-on baggage are. If you choose not to adhere to this you will be charged a hefty fee at the airport. They are strict about this so you should be too. 

4)      They fly to secondary airports. Correct. This keeps the costs down for you so check the price to get from this secondary airport to where it is you’re going and make sure the airfare is still the best price. Ryanair do however offer well priced transport options to the main city centres from most of these airports.

Put simply, Ryanair is a low cost or budget carrier. These airlines offer a seat only airfare at a competitive price and then charge for extras. If however you choose not to select a seat, do not print your boarding card and do not pre purchase luggage when you make your booking online then you will be charged at the airport for such things at a MUCH higher rate.  

Paying for these extras at the airport on top of the airfare will likely end up costing you more than the all inclusive full service airlines fare operating on the same route.

So the message is very simple - follow the rules and you will save! This is not a full service airline, its low cost, it’s different. What you choose to add on is up to you and preparation is vital to get the maximum value.

Onboard.

The cabin itself was clean with no signs of wear and tear. There are no seat pockets in the back of the seats so try and have your bag with you if you can.   There is no WiFi or inflight entertainment, there’s not even a ‘Ryanair inflight magazine’ so be prepared with your own.

Shortly after take-off cabin crew come through the cabin with the buy on board menu and then announce what hot food options are available on this flight. The crew take hot food  orders and then come through again with the snacks and drinks trolley.  Yes you have to pay for water. You have to pay for water on nearly all low cost carriers, it’s not something we agree with but it’s standard.  At some airports you can fill up an empty water bottle at the gate or in the bathroom after security and take it on board with you or just buy a bottle at the airport if you don’t want to buy on board.

 

Check-in

At Edinburgh it was quick and easy but in Barcelona it was quite the opposite. Non EU passport holders need to get their tickets and passports checked at the ticket office and drop their bag off in another line yet this was not signed anywhere. We were in the bag drop line which was cut off half way through so off to the back of another queue we went before being kicked out of that line to get the ticket and passport checked and then it was back to bag drop again. 

It now makes sense to me why customers of the airline get so frustrated if this is how the ground operations are run, but on that point it needs to be made clear that this is a third party issue not a Ryanair issue per se. They outsource these ground operations to a third party company so is it fair to be blaming the airline?  One passenger stated that this always happens with Ryanair but not one of their competitors. A bit of research shows that that competitor does not use this third party operator. Does this taint my opinion of Ryanair? No, but it reminds me that whenever you are traveling on a foreign passport you must always allow extra time. 

Conclusion

Ryanair CLEARLY state all additional or optional fees and charges throughout the booking process and offer extremely competitive no frills airfares.  Never again do I want to hear another complaint about being charged for baggage, boarding cards, seat selection etc. It’s all there in black and white  and the responsibility lies with the passenger to do it. This is how cheap travel works and if you want to travel all inclusive then you need to be flying with a full service legacy airline and paying the corresponding higher fare.

Passengers need to stop expecting a full service product at a low cost airline price. Air travel has never been cheaper nor the choice of who and how you fly greater. It’s a new world of flying – get with it, be grateful for the low fares that open up more travel options, read the fine print, allow more time at the airport than you may normally and finally, take responsibility and stop complaining about Ryanair because it's actually pretty good. 

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