Ryanair - RYR > Reviews (266)

As we were fast approaching June and still had no plans for a break-away this year I was getting more and more frustrated that we were halfway through the year and I had still not used any of my holidays until I heard the ping of new email arriving into my inbox, it was the usual airline updates that I get working in flight reservations notifying me to any promotional offers so I decided to take a look as usual I dismissed them all and carried on with my work, nothing overly interesting until a few hours later I received a forward from a colleague advising me that flights were currently available with Ryanair from just 1p each way and this was including taxes!! I had a quick look at the destination and discovered that there was the option of Dublin or Milan as we had both decided to take a week off anyway as we desperately needed a break from work and we had started to get stressed out, I wanted to try and get this break as cheap as possible and when I looked at Milan the flights were not all that cheap so I decided to take a look at Dublin and hit a real bargain the flights cost a total of 4p for us both on a return flight from Liverpool so was the break relaxing and stress free and are Ryanair as bad as a lot of my Irish Customers say???

*~*About Ryanair*~*
Ryanair was Europe's first low cost carrier airline making it possible to travel around Europe for the cheapest price possible.
The airline was set up in 1985 by the Ryan family with just 25 staff a bit of a difference compared to today where they employ 4500 people.
The first route commenced in July flying from Waterford to London Gatwick now in March 2007 IATA (International Air Transportation Authority ) announced that Ryanair is now the world's largest international airline and Ryanair proudly boast that they can beat any other airline's fare definately something to be proud of but does the airline offer a real service to be proud of? Read on for my opinion.

*~*Booking Process*~*
There are two ways to book with Ryanair either online at ryanair.com or via the Ryanair call centre where the fares can be a lot more expensive. I make at least 5 reservations a day with Ryanair a day through work and know that the website is the best place to make a reservation.
I logged onto www.ryanair.com and on the left hand side of the page is a search engine listing all of the ryanair destinations so I selected Liverpool as my departure point and Dublin for my destination and selected the dates that we wanted to travel and the search returned 3 times to choose from and all of them were 1p per person. I opted for the 0630 departure time which would land into Dublin at 0720 so this would give us at least a full day to see the sight of Dublin and I decided to return the following day at 2245 so that we would have the most of our time away.
During this time I tried to contact my partner to see if he wanted to book the flights so that we could have some time away together during our week off unfortunately he was in a meeting so I was not able to contact him so I decided to go ahead and make the reservation anyway as what was 4p??

I proceed to make my booking and here I was required to enter the names of the passengers as they appear on their passport or other form of photographic identification that is accepted for the flights right next to the name field is the option to select if you wish to prepay for travel insurance and underneath if you wish to pay for checking a bag into the hold. As we were only travelling for just over 24 hours I thought we would not need to take a bag as the hand baggage allowance was 10kg per person which is more than enough for a change of clothes and a few toiletries and to take a bag allowing you 15kgs allowance was £5 per person per bag each way and did I really need an extra 5kgs??

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If you do wish to take a suitcase with you, make sure you add it on at the time of booking as the cost increases once the booking has made to double the price.
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There is also the option to add on priority boarding at the time of making the reservation and this will allow you to be among the first to access the aircraft and this costs £……..
I decided not to opt for this as we would have a seat on the plane and it really made no odds if I was on the plane first or not as it was only a 35 minute flight.
So having removed the travel insurance and declined the option to pre-book baggage and removed the option for priority check-in and proceeded to the payment page.
As I paid with a debit card there was no charge for using this type of card so 4p it was in total.
I entered my card details (card number, expiry date, valid from date/ issue number, security number and the name on the card) and also my contact details (name, address, telephone/mobile number and also email address) to enable me to complete the booking and to receive the booking reference.
Once the booking is made you are bound by the terms and conditions of the flight and it is important that you are familiar with them before you make your booking. If you are happy simply tick the box to proceed and make the reservation.
Once the booking has been made your confirmation number appears, I would always recommend writing the number down, even though you will receive confirmation via email sometimes there can be a delay and as long as you have the reference you will be able to view your booking online and also check-in.

*~*Outbound Flight*~*
As we arrived in departures we checked the screens to see where our flight as checking in, we joined the queue and simply presented our passports to check in, our flight confirmation was not required by the check-in staff who simply issued our boarding pass and advised us that any liquids needed to be transferred into a clear resealable bag before boarding the flight and that we would have to dispose of any sharp or pointed objects at security.
We then proceeded through to the gate, it was clearly stated on the boarding pass that check-in closes strictly 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time, as we arrived at security we were looking for the clear bags available to transfer our liquids however we were expecting someone to be stood at the entrance to security offering the bags out but no we were greeted with a vending machine that was charging 50p for 2 small, clear resealable bags shocking!!

We transferred our toiletries and went through security and went to wait at the gate, as we arrived at the gate a queue had already begun to form so we joined the queue and waited for the flight to begin boarding. There were two separate queues one was for priority boarding and the other is for all other passengers. The priority passengers were required to provide a print out and the bottom half of the print out was handed over to the staff boarding the flight. All priority passengers had access to the front 6 rows of the aircraft and all remaining passengers could sit wherever they like as long as it was after the first six rows.
I have to say that I was impressed with the interior of the aircraft it was clean and the seats appeared to be leather, it was a lot different to when I had previously travelled with them on the same route a couple of years ago when the aircraft was dirty and less modern inside.
We were travelling on a Boeing 737-800 series aircraft and the seat configuration was 3 to the left and 3 to the right unlike most aircrafts there were no inflight magazines and no storage facilities to the back of the seats, the safety instructions were all printed on the reverse of the seats so that they could not be removed from the aircraft which is a great idea in my opinion, the standard overhead storage faclities were stil available proudly painted in ryanairs trade colour of Yellow and the seats were of a deep navy blue colour all in all I was very pleased with the interior of the flight, it was definitely lacking in legroom but for a flight as short as 35 minutes this was unlikely to pose a major problem but as I am under 5ft 5ins in height the taller person ay find the conditions cramped and there is also no facility to recline your seat.

As we were taxiing onto the runway the usual emergency procedures were illustrated by the air hostess and the emergency exits pointed out. Menu cards were then handed out to passengers showing the drinks and food available for purchase on board we didn’t even look at this as we had grabbed a drink before boarding the flight however no sooner were we airbourne then we were starting our descent into Dublin 10 minutes earlier than planned so there really was not enough time to have made full use of the onboard facilities.
The staff onboard the flight were efficient but did not look entirely happy in their roles maybe this was because it was the first flight of the day but still customer service did not appear to be top on their list of priorities and they appeared to find it difficult to return a smile.
Overall the outbound journey had been as good as many of the more expensive domestic carriers I had previously travelled with.

*~*Inbound flight*~*
For the return flight we had gotten to the airport much earlier than anticipated and found we were waiting for the check-in desk to open so that we could get our boarding pass and go through to departures.
Finally the check-in desk opened at1915 and we were able to check in for our return flight, operating the desk was a foreign customer service agent who was a little difficult to understand but we managed to gain the basics, we had noticed that many of the flights had all been delayed due to bad weather in the UK, however as ours was the last flight departing out of Dublin that evening we were very aware that our flight could be delayed or even cancelled so we checked that our flight was not delayed and the customer service agent had confirmed that our flight was still scheduled to depart on time, my partner being him decided to check this with the Customer service desk who advised that our flight was in fact delayed also by 20 minutes and was now due to depart at 2305 and not 2245 I think that they should update their staff……
We proceeded through to security and had a look around the shops before transferring to the departure lounge and grabbing a coffee and a magazine whilst waiting for the flight to board but this was a long wait.

All of the flights had now departed and ours was the only flight left to depart and as an Aer Lingus flight arrived I got excited after spotting a celebrity chef and that kept me occupied for a further 10 minutes before realising that our flight had landed and people had started to queue ready to board. Again there were two queues one for priority passengers and one for all other passengers. We were quite near the front of the queue and were relieved that we would be boarding the flight but as I neared 2230 we realised that we should already be on board by now and there was still no mention of a delay on he departures information and no announcements had been made to passengers on this flight that there was indeed a delay.
Finally all of the other passengers had noticed that there had been a delay and that we were actually now late, finally we boarded the aircraft at 2320 and the flight was refuelling, still there had been no announcement as to why the flight was delayed, in fact there had been no communication whatsoever and in my opinion this is a big no no when it comes to customer relations as I would hate to think what would happen if there had been a major delay.
Finally our flight took off at 2340 almost an hour after it was originally scheduled and despite there being some communication from the cabin crew there was no apology or explanation for the delay not even any mention of the bad weather back at home.
Once we were cruising above the grey clouds the Captain finally spoke to us and advised us that there had been a delay due to an unexpected aircraft change, this was untrue as my partner had been watching out of the window when the aircraft landed in Dublin and watched the pilot walk into the departure lounge and return to the same aircraft that he had a few moments exited and which was the flight that we eventually boarded, obviously it was late and no-one could be bothered to question the delay but the fact that this was a lie just really made me angry, why not be honest with the customer or at least tell a lie that couldn’t be proven otherwise!
Again the staff were efficient but were more miserable than our outbound flight so either they were tired or they were just plain not happy in their roles, onboard catering was not offered on the inbound flight due to a “catering discrepancy” but again no real apology for any inconvenience but I was glad I had grabbed a coffee before boarding.

*~*Overall Opinion*~*
I would definitely fly with Ryanair again given the cheap price that I had paid for the flights but would only do it if the same offer was available as this was excellent value for my money and a few miserable staff and a delay of just under an hour really wasn’t that much of a problem but I really do not think I could cope on a longer flight on board this aircraft!
There are many airlines that I have travelled with and so far Air France are the only airline I would refuse to travel with again and although Ryanair doesn't match the service of scheduled airlines it has never been designed to match this service and should therefore only be compared with airlines of a similar nature such as easyjet.