While there seem to be an extreme bulk of Ryanair reviews, I feel that I should add my opinion especially as the firm has just take one more radical step into the ever changing world of “no-frills” flying. I must admit, I was sceptical of this company at first, but when I took my first flight with them in February 2004 I began to appreciate what Ryanair had done to transform the world of aviation. Now I would call myself a regular user, generally flying with them half a dozen times a year to visit family and friends, or to take a holiday in neighbouring Europe and Ireland. I also travel on many other airlines, particularly for long haul flying which Ryanair does not participate in and I think that people should never be concerned booking this airline as they are a cheap and safe way of hopping around Europe. However, only if you play by their rules!
History of the airline
Skip this section if you aren’t interested in the company’s background*Ryanair was launched in 1985 by Tony Ryan with a share capital of just £1, and members of staff totalling just 25. They launched their first route in the July of that year with daily flights on a 15-seater Bandeirante aircraft, operating daily from Waterford in the southeast of Ireland to London Gatwick.
*In the next year Ryanair was reluctantly allowed permission to challenge the British Airways and Aer Lingus' duopoly on the Dublin-London route. They faced fierce competition but somehow manage to struggle through, their introductory fare of £99 return was less than half the price of the BA/Aer Lingus lowest return fare of £209.
*The company struggles to make a profit and in the years that follow Ryanair continue to steadily expand with larger aircraft, launching a business class service and a frequent flier club to encourage more passengers! (If only the passengers of Ryanair back then could have envisaged what the company would be like today).
*Passenger numbers continued to increase, but the airline generally ran at a loss and by 1991, was in need of restructuring, Michael O’Leary was tasked with the job! He studied the low-fare practices of certain US airlines such as Southwest Airlines and came back to change Ryanair into the most radical airline Europe had ever seen! In 1994 Ryanair took delivery of its first ‘second-hand’ Boeing 737-200 enabling it to operate further routes into Europe and giving it a greater ability to compete with the established airlines.
*The rest, is an aggressive expansion to dominate the European low-fare scene, although certainly not without competition from national airlines and other ‘no-frills competitors’
Where they fly
If you live in the UK or Ireland, Ryanair flies from most airports and despite what people say not all airports are WW11 airstrips in the middle of nowhere, however some of their destinations can be misleading especially to people who don’t know how the airline works (more later). Here are the UK & Ireland departure airports for Ryanair, however I must point out that some airports have 1 destination and others are bases for the airline with as many as 60+ routes!
UK & Northern Ireland
London Stansted (their largest UK base, with the most destinations)
London Luton
London Gatwick (only about 6 destinations)
Bournemouth
East Midlands
Bristol
Birmingham
Liverpool
Manchester (now just one route)
Leeds-Bradford
Edinburgh
Glasgow-Prestwick (roughly about 40 miles from Glasgow)
Aberdeen (one route)
Newcastle (only a few destinations)
Durham Tees Valley (summer only, only a few destinations)
Doncaster-Sheffield
(summer only, only a few destinations)
Check with the airline on www.ryanair.com for route and destination information relevant to you. It is also worth noting that Ryanair also have many hubs outside of the UK of which there are 36 in total. The biggest of these are probably Barcelona (Girona), Brussels (Charleroi), Frankfurt (Hahn), Düsseldorf (Weeze), Milan (Bergamo), Rome (Ciampino) and Stockholm (Skavsta). Ryanair is the third-largest airline in Europe in terms of passenger numbers and the world's largest in terms of international passenger numbers.
Ryanair's Airports
Ryanair's airports seem to vary from tiny little complexes with few facilities such as Angoulême airport in South West France or Altenburg in Eastern Germany to huge (in comparison) multi-terminal facilities such as Madrid or London Gatwick. However most airports appear to be somewhere in between, modest but with a decent set of facilities such as Liverpool, Bremen (Germany) or Reus (Spain). What I often find is that the small airports seem to deal better with Ryanair flights with faster security, better parking and an overall less stressful atmosphere.
One thing to watch out for is Ryanair effectively renaming airports to entice travellers on to their low fare flights. They often prefer to use secondary airports, which does have benefits as I have explained previously, however the place in brackets is often far away from the place you want to go (although not always). Here are some examples from extreme to reasonable:
*Frankfurt (Hahn) - despite its name, the airport is situated over 120 km (75 mi) to the west of the city of Frankfurt (by road). There are bus shuttles which are reasonable value but you have to consider whether or not it's worth it and evaluate it with other airlines who fly to Frankfurt Main.
*Milan (Bergamo) - is a much more reasonable 45Km (27mi) from Milan City Centre and is again served by frequent bus service.
Ryanair often does this with areas but in quite a few cases it actually does serve the main airport (most probably because there is no alternative) such as Prague, Dublin, Budapest, Marseille, Nice, Porto e.t.c. The flip side of this is that you may actually want to travel to a town near Hahn or Bergamo and Ryanair really will be the most convenient option. So in all cases it's best to do you research and check that you are happy with the actual airport flown to.
The Ryanair Experience
Booking
There is a call centre but as they will charge you inflated rates, I would strongly suggest you log on to www.ryanair.com to book all your flights. Here you will be greeted with a busy web page with an option straight away to look for flights. On the bar on the left the current special offers/promotional fares are displayed. It be might worth looking at these special offers if your trip is only dictated by price. Plug your route and dates into the search tool and tick the 'flexible' box if you want to search for the cheapest fares in a 7 day range.
You will be given a price depending on what promotion is on, and what route and dates have been chosen. As a general rule flights are cheaper the further advance you book and if you book outside peak times (although this may not always be the case). You may be lucky enough to find a 1p/£1/£5/£10/£15 fare including taxes and free online check in, these promotional fares offer the best value for money as you don't have to add any other taxes or online check-in fee. If you don't find one of these, you will see a 'web fare' or 'regular fare' of which taxes and online check-in fee are payable. If you select one of these fares you will see the total price excluding the payment handling fee and any hold baggage fees on the next page.
If you wish to add hold baggage the Ryanair website states 'each passenger is permitted to check-in up to 2 bags with a maximum weight of 15kg per bag'. Of course you will pay for this service. The first bag will be £15/€15 and the second will be £35/€35. No pooling of baggage allowance is permitted between bags, even for passengers travelling on the same reservation. If you wish to pay for you flights in any other way that using a Visa Electron, they will charge you £5/€5 per passenger per one way flight - which I think is extortionate. This can be avoided by getting a Visa Electron, either by getting one from a bank that issues it which in the UK is Halifax, with its Easycash, Cardcash and ExpressCash accounts. Or you can use the online 'Entropay' scheme at www.entropay.com which creates a virtual pay-as-you go card.
A full list of 'fees' is available on the website - they look expensive so I find the best way of making Ryanair cheaper than competitors is to simply avoid them! I mostly don't take hold baggage and when I do I make sure not to exceed the limits as they will penalise you fro going over the limit. You are permitted to take one piece of generously sized (55cm x 40cm x 20cm) hand luggage weighing up to 10kg . This is exactly what I do and this allowance is on a par with most other short-haul airlines such as easyJet and BA.
Check-in
This is the latest aspect of the the Ryanair experience, no check-in desks!. ALL passengers must check-in online and print their boarding pass before arriving at the airport. If you don't you will be charged £40 at the airport! You can check-in online up to 21 days in advance, so although slightly inconvenient most people travelling on return flights can check in for both flights at the same time! Ryanair don't mention that you need to enter to Passport/ID Card details when you do this, so have your documents handy! I can see this being a problem for a couple of friends going away for few days in that all their passports won't be in the same place, however it appears to me that people on the same reservation can check-in at different times (i.e. they don't all have to check-in at once). When you arrive at the airport with your printed boarding pass, if you have no hold luggage to check-in proceed directly to security. If you have hold baggage to check-in, go to the 'Ryanair bag-drop desk'. If you have a non-UK/EU passport you must go first to the 'Ryanair Visa/Document Check desk to have your passport stamped. If you do not do this you will be refused boarding.
Boarding
One of the best things about Ryanair is that they market themselves as 'the on-time airline' and most of the time this is true with a record 90% of flights arriving at their destination on time in 2008. Ryanair do not allocate seats. If you wish to board before other people you can purchase 'priority boarding', it's £3 per person and is probably a good idea if you wish to secure the extra-legroom seats or are a large family wishing to sit together. I never buy it because if you are near the front of the non-priority queue you pretty much can select from around 80-90% of the seats that are left after the priority boarders. I think your boarding experience depends on where your flight departs from, most of the Ryanair hubs have an orderly queuing system with ropes separating the different boarding groups (a bit like at the post office!) I have experienced some airports, which are less regularly served ignoring the process and having a massive scrum, not pleasant at all!
In-flight
At October 2009, Ryanair operate 202 modern Boeing 737-800. One-type of aircraft ensures the fleet is easier to operate and maintain. Ryanair turn their aircraft around in about 25 minutes, so often when boarding is called the aircraft has yet to arrive! Ryanair tend not to use airbridges so you walk out to the aircraft.
The slightly older aircraft appear to be more comfortable with reclining blue cloth seats and seat pockets. they have a 'normal' interior colour scheme with a few adverts on overhead lockers.
The newer aircraft are not as comfortable with non-reclining 'pleather' (plastic-leather) seats and no seat pockets, the safety card is glued to the seat in front of you. They sport a rather bright and frankly cheap-looking blue and yellow interior with adverts on the overhead lockers. It's certainly bright if not friendly on the eye. It is a shame that the older aircraft (which are only about 7 years old are increasingly disappearing). But the seats are perfectly adequate for a few hours and that fact than the person in front cannot recline ensures your leg space is always there. I presume the yellow in the cabin is to ensure you don't fall asleep and miss the trolley!
The cabin crew onboard seem perfectly adequate too. Often, although not always they are polite and friendly. They appear to be from all over Europe and often the location and country of the base appears to have no bearing on what nationalitities the crew are. Despite common rumour, not all are Eastern European, although there are quite a few, mixed in with quite a few Spanish and Italian. Most of the time, their English is clear and understandable and although on a few flights I couldn't quite understand what they were saying over the aircraft noise. The crew seem concerned with safety having always done the demo in a professional manner.
Of course, the crew also seem to be concerned with meeting their sales targets, and rightly so, it boosts their wages! Once your up in the air, they love playing recorded sales pitches about overpriced food and drink, duty free, scratch cards e.t.c. It can get a bit annoying after a while, but it's no problem on a short flight. They don't seem to sell much on short flights, but when I flew them last year Liverpool - Tenerife (4 hour flight) they must of made a fortune. I just turn up my iPod and tune out and anyway I seldom buy anything from the overpriced trolley, I eat before boarding!
The pilots seem professional and like to inform you about the flight. Ryanair has a very good safety record and being such a large airline, heavily regulated by the relevant authoritities. Michael O'Leary has been quoted as saying that safety is the one thing the airline would never skimp on!
The toilets are still free and I doubt the aviation authorities would approve the whole plan of charging for toilets. However, the press are gullible enough to give O'Leary free press for these ideas so I suppose it cuts down on advertising and ultimately lowers the fares!
After having flown Ryanair around 35 times in the last 5 years I have never experienced a cancellation! I can only ever remember a couple of delays, one was about 30 minutes and the other a few hours. Whereas I can remember having a twelve hour delay with Monarch and a four hour delay with easyJet. This is in addition to many delays I have had on long haul flights. So Ryanair's punctuality, on the whole, seems to be excellent. You are reminded of this a rather cringeworthy jingle when you land on 'yet another on-time flight
Customer Service
I think this is the one area of Ryanair that is lacking significantly. Despite having a spohisticated website there is absolutuely no way of conatcting them via e-mail or webform. Instead you are supposed to contact them via a premium rate telephone line, by fax or by letter. The one time I had to call them becuase of a change in schedule I waited for a long time on the phone and the lady who answered the phone couldn't help me. So I was passed to another person who did help me, but the phone bill was rather expensive! At the time I just put it down to it being a cheap airline but have since realised that other budget airlines (after having to contact them) are much more helpful in this area. However, I still find Ryanair the cheapest and most punctual..
Competitors
It is essential that you never assume Ryanair to be the cheapest and that you explore all other options of full cost flying, low cost flying or even not flying at all! I have used Ryanair's largest rival easyJet quite a few times now and I don't think they're significantly any better in terms of product. They are better in terms of staff, their customer service and their use of main airports, however they share similar policies of being strict on rules and the actual in-flight experience of cramped seating and sales pitches.
I've also tried bmibaby, Jet2.com, Flybe and Monarch, which I also found to be pretty good. Last year I flew Wizzair, Central and Eastern Europe's largest low-cost airline. They were almost a Ryanair clone, if you didn't know any better you would think they shared the same management! Secondary airports and tons of extras, however their planes were much smarter and surprisingly comfortable. The staff were very friendly and for an all in price of £40 return perhaps the new improved 'ryanair' has arrived!
The best low-cost airlines in terms of service I have found are Air Berlin, Germanwings and Vueling, however their UK connections are fairly limited. Air Berlin even offered complementary snacks and drinks, however they were the most expensive, some of their prices appear to be highly inflated but good deals are available far in advance! These low-cost airlines all offer connections making them more like traditional airlines.
Living in the North I rarely travel BA short-haul, they don't have any direct connections from Manchester and going via Heathrow or Gatwick isn't worth it for a short European flight. I must also admit that recently I have found Aer Lingus and even Aer Arran very competitive on the UK-Ireland market. If you have baggage and wish to not have the 'hassle' of flying Ryanair, go for it but you may pay a premium. I personally find that these airlines have adopted some of Ryanair's policies (charging for snacks and drinks) to remain competitive and there isn't that much of a difference.
My Verdict
Although Ryanair is by no means a perfect concept of 'no-frills' flying, they get the job done bringing you from A to B safely and mostly on-time. They operate an extensive and diverse range of routes across Europe and offer the chance to explore the continent for much less. Just remember when BA/Aer Lingus charged £300 return from London-Dublin! They bring the fares down for all of us. So if you don't mind playing by their rules, you can bag yourself an extraordinarily low fare!
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very informative - and you make a very good point about weighing up ALL the hidden costs and not just assuming the cheapest flight is ...erm...the cheapest!
Rebeccs 22.10.2009 16:35
Very well written and researched review. I liked that you had some information on the history of the airline and your information on the airports Ryanair fly to.
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Oct 22nd, 2009
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