Would you book a Ryanair flight at the moment?

[chris p bacon]

Yes I would. I have travelled many times by Ryanair and I have never had a problem and I will not join a witch hunt against them. And that is exactly what it is because we didn’t see the same level of venom when British Airways left thousands stranded when their computer system went down or when their staff went on strike.

I seem to remember plenty of negative reporting of BA's debacle, the difference between that and Ryanair is that when Ryanair cancel your flight it's 'toughshite' whereas BA had to get everyone to their destination at their cost.

From experience I'll look at Ryanair but if they are the same price as a easyjet/monarch/ ba I'd choose the others first.

As for pricing, on a journey 18 months ago the Ryanair seat with no luggage was only £10 less than BA club class with25kg allowance, when you factor in the additional cost of getting from a far away airport then it was more.

[The Stationmaster]

That's why we used to take the boat train and the ship.

 

I still do!  Unless a there is no choice due to either time pressure (even for leisure trips) or plain old accessibility I would go by train, or ship, every time as it's a much more pleasant and relaxing way to travel with none of the airport nonsense (at either end).   I must admit that most of my air travel since the 1990s has been in Club Class or equivalent which is at least a bit better than 'back of the 'bus' accommodation but even that fails to avoid much of the airport hassle and time wasting which I always find very discouraging and inconvenient.

 

But on the other hand there are situations where air travel simply can't be avoided and has to be tolerated, such a pity it seems it can no longer be enjoyed.

[Fenman]

I still do! Unless a there is no choice due to either time pressure (even for leisure trips) or plain old accessibility I would go by train, or ship, every time as it's a much more pleasant and relaxing way to travel with none of the airport nonsense (at either end). I must admit that most of my air travel since the 1990s has been in Club Class or equivalent which is at least a bit better than 'back of the 'bus' accommodation but even that fails to avoid much of the airport hassle and time wasting which I always find very discouraging and inconvenient.

 

But on the other hand there are situations where air travel simply can't be avoided and has to be tolerated, such a pity it seems it can no longer be enjoyed.

It feels to me like our society has made a choice: I used to travel on my namesake train, west Norfolk to Liverpool Street, taking well over two hours, but on trains of comfy Mk2 stock with full, silver-service restaurant cars. There were half a dozen through trains a day.

 

Now there's an emu every hour, that takes just 1h40, on miserable cramped seats and with no catering of any sort, obviously.

 

Which of those is "better"?

 

The same sort of applies to air travel. But there are differences: in the front of the plane, long-haul business class is now better than even the very best 1st class of 20 years ago. In the back of that plane, or on short-haul (and obviously on LCCs), it's a very different story - cheaper usually wins. More cramped. More miserable. But, as others have said, much more affordable.

 

Paul

[Andrew F]

Even a rubbish train to get a ferry is a lot better then the plane. Many ferry routes have contracted though such as the Newcastle to Norway ferries to Bergan, Stavanger and the ferries to Kristiansand which were nice or. I don't think you can get to Denmark now either from Harwich or a ferry to Sweden.

 

I'm going to Lubeck and would have to get the train from Amsterdam probably or cycle it which would be nice in the summer but in October with the campsites shut I don't know. I bought a Ryanair ticket the other week for £15 Manchester to Hamburg one way; not looking forward to the flight. Ferries were always fun and you'd get chatting and drinking with all kinds of people.

[JZ]

I seem to remember plenty of negative reporting of BA's debacle, the difference between that and Ryanair is that when Ryanair cancel your flight it's 'toughshite' whereas BA had to get everyone to their destination at their cost.

BA cancelled my flight and return to Bergen a couple of months back.  Told by some guy in India that because it was more than 90 days away, flying in November, I could rebook with a partner or have a refund. As their partners don't fly there, I had to take the refund. Rebooked with Norwegian and after the off hand way I was spoken to by the guy in the call centre, will probably never fly BA again.

Edited September 24, 2017 by JZ

[jjb1970]

I still do!  Unless a there is no choice due to either time pressure (even for leisure trips) or plain old accessibility I would go by train, or ship, every time as it's a much more pleasant and relaxing way to travel with none of the airport nonsense (at either end).   I must admit that most of my air travel since the 1990s has been in Club Class or equivalent which is at least a bit better than 'back of the 'bus' accommodation but even that fails to avoid much of the airport hassle and time wasting which I always find very discouraging and inconvenient.

 

But on the other hand there are situations where air travel simply can't be avoided and has to be tolerated, such a pity it seems it can no longer be enjoyed.

Completely agree.

 

One of the things that genuinely mystifies me is why Eurostar seem to have completely failed to market and capitalise on high speed rail connectivity to attract passengers going beyond Brussels and Paris. I've now had three corporate travel advisers/departments who were taken aback by my requests that I'd like to use the train to go to Europe to destinations other than those actually served by Eurostar. I work in an occupation where international travel is normal and where trips to Brussels and a few other Euro destinations such as Brussels, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg are so common as to be considered in the same way as going to a meeting on the other side of London yet until I tell colleagues that Antwerp and Rotterdam can be reached in far greater comfort and virtually as quickly by train as flying nobody I've worked with has had any idea that the train is a viable alternative. Corporate travel agencies and departments are such a crucial audience if you want to win business in that important sector, if Eurostar are failing (or not really trying) to win over that market it is troubling.

 

Unfortunately, ferries seem to be retreating to commercial truck carriers and abandoning walk on passengers or drive on passengers. I can't really blame people for flying when it is a lot quicker and probably a lot cheaper.

[jjb1970]

On BA, I have to say that whenever they've dropped the ball they have always made alternative arrangements for me and offered support. In fact I was quite chuffed once when one of their 747-400's had an engine fault and they put me in a very nice hotel on Orchard Road for a night with £150 to spend while they sorted the problem.

[The Stationmaster]

Completely agree.

 

One of the things that genuinely mystifies me is why Eurostar seem to have completely failed to market and capitalise on high speed rail connectivity to attract passengers going beyond Brussels and Paris. I've now had three corporate travel advisers/departments who were taken aback by my requests that I'd like to use the train to go to Europe to destinations other than those actually served by Eurostar. I work in an occupation where international travel is normal and where trips to Brussels and a few other Euro destinations such as Brussels, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg are so common as to be considered in the same way as going to a meeting on the other side of London yet until I tell colleagues that Antwerp and Rotterdam can be reached in far greater comfort and virtually as quickly by train as flying nobody I've worked with has had any idea that the train is a viable alternative. Corporate travel agencies and departments are such a crucial audience if you want to win business in that important sector, if Eurostar are failing (or not really trying) to win over that market it is troubling.

 

Unfortunately, ferries seem to be retreating to commercial truck carriers and abandoning walk on passengers or drive on passengers. I can't really blame people for flying when it is a lot quicker and probably a lot cheaper.

 

I'm surprised Eurostar still appear to think that way now they're virtually a branchline of SNCF.

 

In the 'old'  Eiiurostar UK there were a lot of ex-airline folk who seemed to find it difficult to 'think railway' and they concentrated very heavily on Eurostar's 'network' and little else.  It took years to even get through bookings in France let alone anywhere else because ex-airline folk saw it as 'complicated'.

 

Amazingly the original Eurostar timetable was built into a whole network of connections via Brussels into what was then known as PBKA (subsequently marketed as Thalys) although when it came down to it some of them could not be relied on because of the cock-eyed way Belgian border police did (or rather didn't do) their job.  But when it worked it was great and I beat air travel over the route London to Köln on one occasion while I even beat the best available air alternative between York and Paris by nearly an hour on another trip (between meetings in those two places).  The Köln trip was incidentally before the Belgian high speed lines opened - nowadays it would be even easier to beat air over that route between city centres (and a lot more comfortable).  

 

But Eurostar UK were never prepared to grasp the nettle - not even for an excellent proposal made by DB, and heavily supported by SNCB and SBB, for a connectional pattern from London via Brussels into the DB network and onwards via Germany to Switzerland.  No doubt the present Eurostar management wouldn't be keen on that as it involves travel via Brussels instead of via Paris although they've still seemingly done little either to exploit connectional opportunities to other places in France via Lille

[Vecchio]

Completely agree.

 

One of the things that genuinely mystifies me is why Eurostar seem to have completely failed to market and capitalise on high speed rail connectivity to attract passengers going beyond Brussels and Paris. I've now had three corporate travel advisers/departments who were taken aback by my requests that I'd like to use the train to go to Europe to destinations other than those actually served by Eurostar. I work in an occupation where international travel is normal and where trips to Brussels and a few other Euro destinations such as Brussels, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg are so common as to be considered in the same way as going to a meeting on the other side of London yet until I tell colleagues that Antwerp and Rotterdam can be reached in far greater comfort and virtually as quickly by train as flying nobody I've worked with has had any idea that the train is a viable alternative. Corporate travel agencies and departments are such a crucial audience if you want to win business in that important sector, if Eurostar are failing (or not really trying) to win over that market it is troubling.

 

Unfortunately, ferries seem to be retreating to commercial truck carriers and abandoning walk on passengers or drive on passengers. I can't really blame people for flying when it is a lot quicker and probably a lot cheaper.

 

Well going frequently to Paris and Brussels I tried the Eurostar several times in the past. But: I have to travel to London first, I have to park the car somewhere. The car park in MK central is 10£50 per day. The ticket to London and return (reduced, Eurostar) is 28£. 

The Eurostar ticket is somewhere around 160£ (this is "wood class" of course). The journey is 2.5 hours. there is practically no internet connection, so not much chance to work. The seats are not really comfortable, if you have the bad luck to go on an old one it is even worse. If you sit in the middle (seats with a table) you sit so close to your opposite traveller that you touch his/her knees. This may be interesting in some cases, not for me I am afraid. the seats close to the ends of the carriage (emergency exit) are tilt seats which are all bent forward, so not really what the doctor prescribes. 

 

If I go to Luton this is 30 minutes for me, the return ticket is between 50 and 100 depending on how early you book. If needed I can participate to a meeting in the headquarter at 10:30 without an overnight stay in Paris. The car park in Luton is 25 per day (mid stay, early booking) and in 50 minutes I am in Paris or Brussels. I am sorry, but for me the Eurostar is taking much more time and is more expensive. So for me there is no question what to use. 

[Andy Hayter]

It's not just Eurostar that are somewhat lackadaisical regarding pricing.

 

 

For a number of years while working I commuted at weekends from near Koeln/Cologne Germany to my house in the South-ish of France.

I had a number of options for the journey:

Thalys to Brussels, Lille or Paris and TGV onwards to Lyon/Valence

Drive - almost all motorway except the last 40km up into the mountains.

Fly - a number of options but in the main 2 airlines Lufthansa or Air France - no Locos flying on suitable routes at that time.  Usually flying Duesseldorf - Lyon, sometimes via Paris and then occasionally the leg from Paris to Lyon being by TGV;  Sometimes Frankfurt/Main - Lyon.  Thereafter either TGV from the airport to Valence or tram into Lyon and local train to Valance.  

 

More than anything my selection of route was driven by cost - after all I was paying, although I could claim a tax rebate.  I stress price because door to door the timings were really not so dissimilar.

Best time flying door to door - tram, train, plane, TGV and pick up at the station for the drive home - 7:30

Best time driving door to door - 8:10 - but this could get much worse during the summer holidays and for bank holiday weekends (which to be honest was when I used this route the most), or when there was a serious traffic problem around Lyon.

Best time Thalys/TGV tram, Thalys/TGV and pick up in Valence - 9:20

 

In the case of public transport I could and did use all opportunities to do some work in lounges and while underway.   Careful planning meant that even without wifi, I could work on saved documents and construct if not send replies.

 

 My target flight costs were €99 return (with flag carriers!) which rose to €130 when EU airport/flight taxes were introduced.  However at peak times around holidays these prices rose very significantly, and I could never book more than a couple of weeks in advance because of very flexible work requirements which might have meant I was not in Cologne to start a journey.

 

Driving I had fuel costs, wear and tear on the car and the cost of motorway tolls in France.  Tolls alone were in excess of €45 return.  Plus fuel (in Luxembourg in both directions*) over €100.

* Cheapest fuel in civilised Europe.

 

Train - never got an offer below €190 return, frequently more and consequent of frequent SNCF strikes on occasion connections were lost.

​ 

[jjb1970]

Well going frequently to Paris and Brussels I tried the Eurostar several times in the past. But: I have to travel to London first, I have to park the car somewhere. The car park in MK central is 10£50 per day. The ticket to London and return (reduced, Eurostar) is 28£. 

The Eurostar ticket is somewhere around 160£ (this is "wood class" of course). The journey is 2.5 hours. there is practically no internet connection, so not much chance to work. The seats are not really comfortable, if you have the bad luck to go on an old one it is even worse. If you sit in the middle (seats with a table) you sit so close to your opposite traveller that you touch his/her knees. This may be interesting in some cases, not for me I am afraid. the seats close to the ends of the carriage (emergency exit) are tilt seats which are all bent forward, so not really what the doctor prescribes. 

 

If I go to Luton this is 30 minutes for me, the return ticket is between 50 and 100 depending on how early you book. If needed I can participate to a meeting in the headquarter at 10:30 without an overnight stay in Paris. The car park in Luton is 25 per day (mid stay, early booking) and in 50 minutes I am in Paris or Brussels. I am sorry, but for me the Eurostar is taking much more time and is more expensive. So for me there is no question what to use.

Horses for courses really. I have a season ticket to the train to London is already paid for, my wife will drop me off at the station, a five minute walk down to /Euston Road to St Pancras so my costs to get to the Eurostar terminal is a few miles for my car, time less than an hour. The check in formalities at St. Pancras are less objectionable than most airports and relatively quick, then it is two hours to Brussels. On arrival at Gare du Midi it is about 30 minutes from door release to me arriving in most meeting venues or my hotel and I can use the Metro which costs peanuts. I get some cracking ticket prices on Eurostar although as with airlines and long distance rail travel in the UK a lot depends on when you book, date, time you need to arrive, whether a black cat crossed the road under a full moon when you bought the ticket etc but on average I'd say it is about £130 return but sometimes quite a bit less than that. If looking at a door to door journey flying from Luton it'd be no quicker, if flying from Heathrow, London City or Birmingham the Eurostar is quicker. I can work offline so web access is not necessary for me to work on-board the train. I find the Eurostar to be much more comfortable than a short haul configured 737 or A320 and you have a view out of the window. And you avoid airports.

[APOLLO]

I used to annoy people at work by saying "Well, this time on Saturday I'll be on the plane"

 

"Where are you going you lucky so and so" ? was the reply, to which I answered

 

"Nowhere - I'll be on the plane taking 1/8" off the front door" !!!

 

Ah well - better then Ryanair (of which I've never been on nor ever intend to).

 

Brit15 

[PatB]

I haven't really experienced short haul air travel in Europe, apart from a return flight Gatwick-Bilbao 20+years ago, and a slightly more recent Easyjet return Stanstead-Oviedo, so I can't really comment from first hand experience. However I did spend 18 months recently doing Canberra- Perth-Canberra every couple of weeks and didn't find it too onerous. Indeed, flying exclusively with Virgin, once I'd amassed enough points to use their Lounge, with its free food and drink and proper free wifi, I have to confess to rather enjoying it. Especially once I'd amassed even more points and was able to get the occasional upgrade to Business class.

 

To inject a railway element into this post, I did find Stanstead's rubber tyred, concrete railed people-mover thingy rather intriguing.

[The Stationmaster]

I haven't really experienced short haul air travel in Europe, apart from a return flight Gatwick-Bilbao 20+years ago, and a slightly more recent Easyjet return Stanstead-Oviedo, so I can't really comment from first hand experience. However I did spend 18 months recently doing Canberra- Perth-Canberra every couple of weeks and didn't find it too onerous. Indeed, flying exclusively with Virgin, once I'd amassed enough points to use their Lounge, with its free food and drink and proper free wifi, I have to confess to rather enjoying it. Especially once I'd amassed even more points and was able to get the occasional upgrade to Business class.

 

To inject a railway element into this post, I did find Stanstead's rubber tyred, concrete railed people-mover thingy rather intriguing.

 

I didn't find Virgin Blue too bad - provided you could get the right seat - although I only used them for a couple of return trips between Sydney and Brisbane back in late 2004/early 2005 and the Aus domestic airport experience was considerably better and more hassle free compared with the UK back then (although the international side experience at Sydney was definitely far worse than Heathrow).

[Paperlad]

A couple of days ago I promised to write something about Ryan, it's difficult to know where to begin but here goes....

 

The current difficulties that O'Liary (deliberate spelling error) and Ryan are suffering are entirely self inflicted and I have no sympathy for them, nor do I have much sympathy for the paying public, who paid 'two Bob' for a ticket and are now baying for blood and compensation.

 

O'Leary and his senior management are driven by a single motive at the expense of everything else and the motive is maximum profit. Given that some requirements are fixed everything else must be kept to the absolute, and I emphasise absolute, minimum. Have you ever wondered why Ryan's aircraft don't have window blinds, or reclining seats, or seat-back pockets, no padding on the headrestraints of the seat in front of you, minimum washrooms, minimum cabin crew, minimum seat pitch, cabin crew doing the cabin tidying (you can't call it cleaning) after landing....it's all about reducing costs. Does anyone recall Ryan's 99p seat sale or the suggestions of paying to use the wash room, or standing room only with a pull out stool for take off and landing - and possibly the daftest one of all - only having a single pilot and using cabin crew to fly in an emergency! Many will say that these were simply PR stunts in order to get headline news but if they'd been approved by the regulator, for sure, that's what we'd now have. Ryan bought a bunch of new 737's soon after 9/11, when prices were depressed, and then made profit on them through some convoluted buy back and lease arrangement. Some airports will even pay Ryanair to bring passengers to them.

 

The current problems that they have, despite what O'Leary spouts, is due to a lack of pilots. Ryan make about €30000 profit from each cadet pilot they train who have payed for the 737 type rating out of their own pocket. These are cadets that have come straight out of flying school, already saddled with huge training debt, and have about 200 hrs total flying time. In the past, unless the pilot was ex military or sponsored by an airline, the only way to get to a shiny new jet was to build experience flying lots of other, smaller stuff but this experience takes time and commitment. Ryan decided to exploit this and offered the carrot of going from flying school straight onto a medium jet - but - the pilot payed for it and payed for everything including uniform, medicals, hotac costs, transport, (including cost of flights if your training was out of base) and doubtless many other things. All approved by the regulator and the only thing required was an ability to pay.

 

So, you ask, why am I waffling on about all this?

 

In pretty much all of the previous post the overriding topic has been the cost of a seat on a Ryanair 'plane, to my knowledge no one has mentioned safety. Perhaps safety is implied by buying a ticket on a western airline or, maybe everyone thinks modern aircraft don't go wrong or maybe they just don't care?

 

Now picture yourself on that same flight that you paid 'two bob for. Up front you have an inexperienced, 200hr wonder kid, possibly still under training, and very probably, an equally inexperienced Captain who may have got his/her upgrade with Ryan, in the minimum time and knows nothing outside Ryanair. And then something goes wrong with the aircraft (there are countless possibilities), throw in a bit of bad weather, a bit of fatigue due the the Ryanair schedule, you're on min fuel (Ryan policy), maybe a disruptive, drunk pax or two and minimum cabin crew trying to sell you a fake charity scratch card....whilst O'Leary and his cohorts are sat in their padded, leather chair counting the pennies!

 

You can probs now see where I'm coming from.

 

Safety should be number one, it's easy to say and very difficult to maintain once standards start to be eroded.

 

This guy says it much better than I ever could....

 

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/ryanair-cancellations-michael-oleary-13668109?ICID=FB_DublinLive_Main

Edited September 25, 2017 by Paperlad

[Andrew F]

That's made me feel a lot better about my upcoming Ryanair flight.

[Paperlad]

That's made me feel a lot better about my upcoming Ryanair flight.

Yer pays yer money, yer makes yer choice.

[Zomboid]

To be fair to Ryanair, whatever the risks they could be said to be taking, in their history so far they have an unblemished record in terms of major accidents and passenger fatalities.

[Paperlad]

To be fair to Ryanair, whatever the risks they could be said to be taking, in their history so far they have an unblemished record in terms of major accidents and passenger fatalities.

Safety is not only about deaths and crashes......

 

https://www.tripsavvy.com/ryanair-safety-record-1644049

[Horsetan]

.... the overriding topic has been the cost of a seat on a Ryanair 'plane, to my knowledge no one has mentioned safety. Perhaps safety is implied by buying a ticket on a western airline or, maybe everyone thinks modern aircraft don't go wrong or maybe they just don't care?

 

Now picture yourself on that same flight that you paid 'two bob for. Up front you have an inexperienced, 200hr wonder kid, possibly still under training, and very probably, an equally inexperienced Captain who may have got his/her upgrade with Ryan, in the minimum time and knows nothing outside Ryanair. And then something goes wrong with the aircraft (there are countless possibilities), throw in a bit of bad weather, a bit of fatigue due the the Ryanair schedule, you're on min fuel (Ryan policy), maybe a disruptive, drunk pax or two and minimum cabin crew trying to sell you a fake charity scratch card...

 

This has quite a bit of resemblance to the backstory in Radio 4's Cabin Pressure!

[Joseph_Pestell]

A couple of days ago I promised to write something about Ryan, it's difficult to know where to begin but here goes....

 

The current difficulties that O'Liary (deliberate spelling error) and Ryan are suffering are entirely self inflicted and I have no sympathy for them, nor do I have much sympathy for the paying public, who paid 'two Bob' for a ticket and are now baying for blood and compensation.

 

O'Leary and his senior management are driven by a single motive at the expense of everything else and the motive is maximum profit. Given that some requirements are fixed everything else must be kept to the absolute, and I emphasise absolute, minimum. Have you ever wondered why Ryan's aircraft don't have window blinds, or reclining seats, or seat-back pockets, no padding on the headrestraints of the seat in front of you, minimum washrooms, minimum cabin crew, minimum seat pitch, cabin crew doing the cabin tidying (you can't call it cleaning) after landing....it's all about reducing costs. Does anyone recall Ryan's 99p seat sale or the suggestions of paying to use the wash room, or standing room only with a pull out stool for take off and landing - and possibly the daftest one of all - only having a single pilot and using cabin crew to fly in an emergency! Many will say that these were simply PR stunts in order to get headline news but if they'd been approved by the regulator, for sure, that's what we'd now have. Ryan bought a bunch of new 737's soon after 9/11, when prices were depressed, and then made profit on them through some convoluted buy back and lease arrangement. Some airports will even pay Ryanair to bring passengers to them.

 

The current problems that they have, despite what O'Leary spouts, is due to a lack of pilots. Ryan make about €30000 profit from each cadet pilot they train who have payed for the 737 type rating out of their own pocket. These are cadets that have come straight out of flying school, already saddled with huge training debt, and have about 200 hrs total flying time. In the past, unless the pilot was ex military or sponsored by an airline, the only way to get to a shiny new jet was to build experience flying lots of other, smaller stuff but this experience takes time and commitment. Ryan decided to exploit this and offered the carrot of going from flying school straight onto a medium jet - but - the pilot payed for it and payed for everything including uniform, medicals, hotac costs, transport, (including cost of flights if your training was out of base) and doubtless many other things. All approved by the regulator and the only thing required was an ability to pay.

 

So, you ask, why am I waffling on about all this?

 

In pretty much all of the previous post the overriding topic has been the cost of a seat on a Ryanair 'plane, to my knowledge no one has mentioned safety. Perhaps safety is implied by buying a ticket on a western airline or, maybe everyone thinks modern aircraft don't go wrong or maybe they just don't care?

 

Now picture yourself on that same flight that you paid 'two bob for. Up front you have an inexperienced, 200hr wonder kid, possibly still under training, and very probably, an equally inexperienced Captain who may have got his/her upgrade with Ryan, in the minimum time and knows nothing outside Ryanair. And then something goes wrong with the aircraft (there are countless possibilities), throw in a bit of bad weather, a bit of fatigue due the the Ryanair schedule, you're on min fuel (Ryan policy), maybe a disruptive, drunk pax or two and minimum cabin crew trying to sell you a fake charity scratch card....whilst O'Leary and his cohorts are sat in their padded, leather chair counting the pennies!

 

You can probs now see where I'm coming from.

 

Safety should be number one, it's easy to say and very difficult to maintain once standards start to be eroded.

 

This guy says it much better than I ever could....

 

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/ryanair-cancellations-michael-oleary-13668109?ICID=FB_DublinLive_Main

 

I'm not unsympathetic to your views on this. But, to be fair, how many casualties have Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, had in its history. None, and you can't get much safer than that.

 

Others here, with more flying knowledge than me, suggest that hard landings are recommended by Boeing. I'm not sure why it would be necessary to bump down (bounce) a 737-800 when a 319/320 can land in the same conditions with much less drama.

 

Strangely enough, the best Ryanair landing I have had was at Bournemouth when the approach had been all over the place due to high winds. Generally, it's a right old thump down even in the best possible conditions. Admittedly, my view may be biased due to a lot of journeys to/from Lulsgate, surely the most daft place that a civilian airport has ever been built.

[Paperlad]

I'm not unsympathetic to your views on this. But, to be fair, how many casualties have Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, had in its history. None, and you can't get much safer than that.

 

Others here, with more flying knowledge than me, suggest that hard landings are recommended by Boeing. I'm not sure why it would be necessary to bump down (bounce) a 737-800 when a 319/320 can land in the same conditions with much less drama.

 

Strangely enough, the best Ryanair landing I have had was at Bournemouth when the approach had been all over the place due to high winds. Generally, it's a right old thump down even in the best possible conditions. Admittedly, my view may be biased due to a lot of journeys to/from Lulsgate, surely the most daft place that a civilian airport has ever been built.

See my post num 94 re touchdown(landing). A bounce is different requiring a particular recovery technique.

 

See my post num 144 re safety.

 

I'd put Lulsgate on a par with Leeds Bradford for daftness

[Revolution Mike]

The no deaths thing is a highly misleading safety statistic! There are an awful lot of industrial sectors that have very low fatalities but when they do have an accident then the effects can be quite devastating.

 

Leading (rather than lagging eg fatalities/injuries etc) indicators are often a better way of seeing how "safe" a sector/company is eg near misses, employee feedback/perception, safety audits etc (all assume lessons learned are acted upon).

[The Stationmaster]

A couple of days ago I promised to write something about Ryan, it's difficult to know where to begin but here goes....

 

The current difficulties that O'Liary (deliberate spelling error) and Ryan are suffering are entirely self inflicted and I have no sympathy for them, nor do I have much sympathy for the paying public, who paid 'two Bob' for a ticket and are now baying for blood and compensation.

 

O'Leary and his senior management are driven by a single motive at the expense of everything else and the motive is maximum profit. Given that some requirements are fixed everything else must be kept to the absolute, and I emphasise absolute, minimum. Have you ever wondered why Ryan's aircraft don't have window blinds, or reclining seats, or seat-back pockets, no padding on the headrestraints of the seat in front of you, minimum washrooms, minimum cabin crew, minimum seat pitch, cabin crew doing the cabin tidying (you can't call it cleaning) after landing....it's all about reducing costs. Does anyone recall Ryan's 99p seat sale or the suggestions of paying to use the wash room, or standing room only with a pull out stool for take off and landing - and possibly the daftest one of all - only having a single pilot and using cabin crew to fly in an emergency! Many will say that these were simply PR stunts in order to get headline news but if they'd been approved by the regulator, for sure, that's what we'd now have. Ryan bought a bunch of new 737's soon after 9/11, when prices were depressed, and then made profit on them through some convoluted buy back and lease arrangement. Some airports will even pay Ryanair to bring passengers to them.

 

The current problems that they have, despite what O'Leary spouts, is due to a lack of pilots. Ryan make about €30000 profit from each cadet pilot they train who have payed for the 737 type rating out of their own pocket. These are cadets that have come straight out of flying school, already saddled with huge training debt, and have about 200 hrs total flying time. In the past, unless the pilot was ex military or sponsored by an airline, the only way to get to a shiny new jet was to build experience flying lots of other, smaller stuff but this experience takes time and commitment. Ryan decided to exploit this and offered the carrot of going from flying school straight onto a medium jet - but - the pilot payed for it and payed for everything including uniform, medicals, hotac costs, transport, (including cost of flights if your training was out of base) and doubtless many other things. All approved by the regulator and the only thing required was an ability to pay.

 

So, you ask, why am I waffling on about all this?

 

In pretty much all of the previous post the overriding topic has been the cost of a seat on a Ryanair 'plane, to my knowledge no one has mentioned safety. Perhaps safety is implied by buying a ticket on a western airline or, maybe everyone thinks modern aircraft don't go wrong or maybe they just don't care?

 

Now picture yourself on that same flight that you paid 'two bob for. Up front you have an inexperienced, 200hr wonder kid, possibly still under training, and very probably, an equally inexperienced Captain who may have got his/her upgrade with Ryan, in the minimum time and knows nothing outside Ryanair. And then something goes wrong with the aircraft (there are countless possibilities), throw in a bit of bad weather, a bit of fatigue due the the Ryanair schedule, you're on min fuel (Ryan policy), maybe a disruptive, drunk pax or two and minimum cabin crew trying to sell you a fake charity scratch card....whilst O'Leary and his cohorts are sat in their padded, leather chair counting the pennies!

 

You can probs now see where I'm coming from.

 

Safety should be number one, it's easy to say and very difficult to maintain once standards start to be eroded.

 

This guy says it much better than I ever could....

 

http://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/ryanair-cancellations-michael-oleary-13668109?ICID=FB_DublinLive_Main

 

I've only got one quibble with that lot.  On my sole, heavily delayed, Ryanair flight the cabin crew had the cheek to ask us - the passengers - to tidy up the aircraft as they only had a short turn round and we were running late.  In view of the fact that the delayed departure from Stansted was entirely down to O'Learyair I showed my appreciation by emptying my already 'tidied up' bag of rubbish on the floor (none of it was hazardous or dangerous etc otherwise it wouldn't have gone there).

 

Cheapskate airline personified, and the final act was when their ground agent pushed up the steps to the forward end door where they were the wrong height and then had to move them to the aft end door so passengers could actually alight.  You really do, almost. get what you pay for with Ryanair and some of the long vanished charter operators were a hundred times better, as was a 'white tail' leased BAC1-11, and crew, I enjoyed on a BA flight from Glasgow to Brussels on one occasion.

[chris p bacon]

BA cancelled my flight and return to Bergen a couple of months back.  Told by some guy in India that because it was more than 90 days away, flying in November, I could rebook with a partner or have a refund. As their partners don't fly there, I had to take the refund. Rebooked with Norwegian and after the off hand way I was spoken to by the guy in the call centre, will probably never fly BA again.

 

While I'm sure that was a PITA,  cancelling more than 90 days in advance isn't the same as when the IT system went arse up and people were stranded. My experience of the low cost carriers when n issue arises is that they just re-book you on another flight which could be 3-4 days away and say "Tough".  No amount of arguing that they have to help or pay for you to find somewhere to stay in the meantime,  you're on your own. (from experience Easyjet are no better in this regard).

 

I do find the low cost carriers pricing to be not that cheap nowadays, like a lot of things people just assume they are cheap without checking elsewhere. A couple of years ago No1 son and I flew to Finland for Rally, he booked the flights approx 4 months in advance, the Ryan starting price was £130 and the fare with BA/Finnair was £110 (both return) when he checked a week before flying out of curiosity the BA fare was £130 and the Ryan fare was £250+, on the aircraft the chap I sat next to had only booked a few days before and had paid £130 and the flight was full. By contrast when the group assembled those that had flown Ryan air said the flight was only half full and they also had a trek into Helsinki to pick up the onward transport which had cost them dearly (like all things in Finland).

Finnair was good, and I liked the camera on the nose wheel for take off and landing. 

Edited September 25, 2017 by chris p bacon