For anyone who's ever flown on a nice airline like Virgin Atlantic, you have probably been impressed by all the "free" amenities they provide. When I flew to Boston on Virgin Atlantic, they gave us bag filled with a toothbrush and toothpaste, a sleeping mask, socks, lip balm, etc. Plus, I was in a row of four with just two people, so we got twice as many goodies. We also got to watch the movie of our choice on the seat-back TV screens, play video games, and they fed us dinner including wine. It was nice, but it probably would have been nicer to have extra cash! That's right, folks, all those "free gifts" are not really free. In fact, you are probably paying more for them than you realize.
On Ryanair, there are no frills. But if you are flying for a fairly short distance, you don't really need a lot of extras. The flight attendents come around and try to sell you drinks and snacks and various duty-free products such as perfume. However, the cabin crew is not pushy, and it's easy to ignore them if you don't want to make any purchases.
Ryanair has the most routes and the lowest prices of the budget airlines that have hubs in London. Ryanair also has hubs in Shannon and Dublin, Glasgow, Brussels, and Frankfurt. I have flown Ryanair from London Stansted to Shannon and Venice and from Dublin and Pisa back to London. All four flights arrived basically on time and I successfully retrieved my luggage. I have had no problems with this airline so far (touch wood!) If you book far in advance (at least 2 or 3 weeks) and fly on a weekday, flights can be dirt cheap. My flight back from Pisa was around £15 plus taxes!
Ryanair has an easy-to-navigate website from which you can book your flights. You simply give them your confirmation code at the airport and you're all set.
One problem with this airline is that it doesn't fly out of Heathrow. So, it can cost you as much as the flight to actually get to the airport! (Stansted Airport is 45 minutes by train from central London and it costs around £20 to get there and back.) But you still save money by flying on this budget airline as opposed to one of the luxury ones.
If you get to the airport allowing for enough time to check in as you are supposed to for international flights, you may have to wait around since Ryanair has a fairly short check-in time. Also, my "boarding pass" in Pisa was literally a printed out piece of paper with the Ryanair symbol on it and my surname written on it in pen! It was a little scary that they were THAT budget, but I survived! :)
I have also heard that they charge very high fees for extra luggage and have a low luggage weight limit. So, look into that before packing any giant suitcases.
You want to get to the airport early enough so that you can sit with your companions on the flight. Ryanair does not assign seats. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you end up sitting next to. On our flight to Shannon, my mates and I got separated and I chose to sit next to the most handsome man on the plane (of course! Where else would I choose to sit?). But my friends ended up next to screaming babies or something. They are still bitter that I got to sit next to the cute guy-- even though he spent the whole flight trying to teach me Norwegian.
If you try to change your flight, Ryanair will charge you about the same price as your ticket as a fee. My friends and I missed a bus in Ireland so, in order to stick to our itinerary, we had to hitch a ride with a one-legged man who slaughtered Christmas geese for a living. Hey, it was better than paying £50 to get on a flight for the next day!
Very informative op here...Congratulations on the Diamond!!! Chris xxx
tiffany234 05.11.2003 21:50
I flew with Ryanair last year to sweden, and didn't have anything to complain about. Nice op, T
Lucky_cow 30.04.2003 17:08
I“ve been flying with Ryanair twice, and it wasn“t worse than the "better" airlines.. and sometimes they“re kind enough to oversee if you have a little more in your luggage than the limit is set for.. :) xx K
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