I was looking for cheap flights to London recently following an invite to a family wedding and I had been advised to check out a few of the budget airlines to see what was on offer, at that time Ryanair.com were coming in the cheapest, so naturally this seemed more attractive.
I logged onto to ryanair.com and I found their homepage, their colour scheme and logo’s are easily recognisable in blue and yellow, it also has some advertisement banners running down the right hand side of their home page for various related things including hotels, car hire, insurance and loans, although no junk flashing all over the place. It also lists where you can fly to from each airport along with some typical costings, although these costings are excluding taxes which you can bet at least double that total, but still provides good value. I found it very easy to navigate with no annoying pop ups bugging me, quite fast too.
For example:
From London – Stansted
Brest £1.99 Berlin-Schonefeld £6.99 Tampere £16.99 Dublin £6.99 Glasgow £12.99
This is just a few of the destinations, there are too many to list but they also fly from Glasgow-Prestwick, Dublin, Shannon and Frankfurt-Hahn.
The idea is you click on a destination that goes along with your departure airport for further information on flights, fares etc.
So I clicked on London Stansted from Glasgow Prestwick, I then had to select which dates I wanted to travel with them, I was then asked how many people wanted to travel, I was then offered a range of flight times available on those dates along with prices for each flight To give you some idea this was my selection:
Outward Glasgow-Prestwick To London-Stansted Friday 10.10.03 15.20pm £14.99 each
Return London-Stansted To Glasgow-Prestwick Sunday 12.10.03 16.55pm £0.01 each
So for 4 adults the complete costing worked out as follows:
Flights £60.00 Taxes £54.88 Handling Fee £4.00
So the total for 4 adults to Fly from Glasgow-Prestwick to London-Standsted on return flights came in at a grand total of £118.88 which I was then offered to pay by Visa, Mastercard, Solo, Switch.
It also stated that Ryanair was a ticketless airline which meant that if I decided to book then no tickets would be issued, each passenger would have to bring along suitable photographic identification along with the confirmation number at time of booking in which is normally 2 hours prior to each departure.
I proceeded to book and entered details of all passengers including full names and my home address, contact email and phone number, all the flight and contact information was then summarised which I checked and then confirmed and proceeded to pay by my mastercard, all done within 5 minutes, yeay!
Almost immediately I received a confirmation email through advising me of all details I had booked along with my confirmation number. Within that confirmation was also a note telling me that I was entitled to free or discounted rail travel to and from Prestwick Airport on presentation of a valid internet booking confirmation.
The only valid forms of photo-id accepted are:
A Valid Passport A Driving Licence with Photo International Student Identity Card with Photo Schengen issued National Identity Card with Photo
National Identity Cards are accepted only when issued by a Schengen country, currently the following Schengen Stated issue National Identity Cards to its residents: Austria, Belium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Children under the age of 16 years travelling with an adult who has photo identification as defined above do not need photo id on domestic UK Ireland-UK routes or routes between Schengen States.
And as always you will require a valid passport when travelling outwith the UK mainland.
Failure to provide an appropriate form of valid photo-id will result in being refused check-in without refund, so it’s in your interest to take along one of the above as stated, unlike my mother in law, who on our flight last Friday insisted that as she worked for a government body her work’s id pass would be sufficient, well of course it wasn’t and this resulted in my husband Craig having to drive from Prestwick to East Kilbride and back (around 30 miles) in 55 minutes through Friday afternoon traffic, I think he broke a few speed limits to do it, oh dear, we did manage to get on the flight without a moment to spare.
I had asked the girl at the check out desk if we had missed this flight would we be able to go on stand by for the next available flight and if so what would the cost be, to which she informed that yes it was possible but it would cost around £40 per adult, so it is worthwhile to double check these things before you leave for airport.
After the chaotic check in (no fault of Ryanair’s) we proceeded through departures with our boarding cards, it was just as chaotic and very unorganised, too many flights boarding at same time for a smallish airport like Prestwick, but thankfully because we were already running late they pushed us through, we then had to run all the way to our departure gate.
After several minutes and much huffing and puffing we arrived, expecting a walkway onto airplane, wrong, we went outside in the pouring rain to learn we had to climb stairs onto plane, it was okay but I would hate to imagine someone with any difficulties of any kind as I had no prior warning of this.
We then boarded plane to discover the seats we had been allocated were nul and void, basically you just sit anywhere there is a seat, what I hear you cry, yes, it was very much like a free for all!, there was hardly any seats left by this time although we did manage to get a seat toward the rear of the plane although not together. The seating is in rows 2 sets fo three seats with an aisle seperating each set, satisfactory legroom but practically sitting on top of person next to you, it was very tight and not very comfortable, thank goodness it was to be a short flight. Never mind we were lucky to have made it this far considering everything.
I did find aisles very tight to walk up, also happy to announce I had managed to find somewhere to put our hand luggage with the help of the air hostess, they seemed very keen to help. By the time everyone boarded there was no a seat left to be had anywhere, a very busy flight indeed.
We were eventually ready for take off 10 minutes later than planned, everyone in their seats with seat belts fastened off we went, a bit of a bumpy take off, being a bit scared of flying this was not as smooth as I would have liked lol, the flight was due to last 1 hour and 15 minutes but Ryanair managed to catch up on their late start and landed on time, taking only 1 hour and 5 minutes.
During the flight the air hostess’ handed out brochures of duty free products available to purchase, I was surprised to learn we could purchase everything except for cigarettes and alcohol, although it was not that much cheaper, so in fact it probably wasn’t duty free at all, but it was slightly cheaper so still a bit of a bargain to be had. We were also able to purchase something to drink and/or something to eat for example tea, coffee, soft drinks, beer, wine etc and food wise sandwiches/baguettes although be warned the food is fairly pricey the average sandwich costing around £4.00.
Time to land was nearing, my panic was setting in after our take off, but I have to say it was not so bad although it was a little longer than usual.
So would I use them again??
I think I would, it was good value considering it was a cheap flight on a budget airline and all in all I was reasonably satisfied although as I have not travelled any other budget airlines I don’t really have anything to compare it too.
For further details their website address is www.ryanair.com
Thanks for reading and as usual I look forward to your comments, Bon Voyage!
More details
Class flown most frequently
Economy
How often do you travel with this airline
First time
Where did you book
Directly with this airline
Safety
Satisfactory
How well does it cater for disabled people
It is not one of their priorities
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