Ryanair New Baggage Policy - Should be Interesting

[Lot lover]

I am prepared to stand for other deserving cases to sit but not for those with a self inflicted condition I.e. pregnant women.

As for your assertion about being prepared to stand, afaik that is not an option on a plane.

As for your not having a height problem is it not precisely that causing you great discomfort on budget airlines?

We will have to agree to disagree as to a definition of "why I am in business".

 

[Snowbird]

Baggage !!!, Surely that is the butler and downstairs staff to sort .

 

[tonyidle]

[

Of course some passengers might be too thick to know the front of the aircraft from the back

If they saw it reverse park how would they know?

 

[Parapilot]

As for your not having a height problem is it not precisely that causing you great discomfort on budget airlines?

Not at all. As previously explained I don't have a height problem - it is not an affliction or disability, just a natural process of evolution.
The problem (and discomfort) is solely caused by the size and pitch of seating chosen by some airlines, which favours those of leprechaun stature whilst discriminating against those further up the evolutionary scale. If your office chair was replaced by a primary school child's chair you would have similar problems even if you were average height.

Having one or two adjustable rows would solve the problem - allowing fair and sufficient basic leg room for taller people and the same equivalent space for smaller people behind them (perhaps even children). I don't relish the idea of a squawking child kicking my seat back for 4 hours but it would still be preferable to arriving crippled !

 

[tonyidle]

I am prepared to stand for other deserving cases to sit but not for those with a self inflicted condition I.e. pregnant women.

As for your assertion about being prepared to stand, afaik that is not an option on a plane.

As for your not having a height problem is it not precisely that causing you great discomfort on budget airlines?

We will have to agree to disagree as to a definition of "why I am in business".

The simple answer is to take legroom out of the equation with a regulated minimum standard to which all airlines must adhere. I hate public transport with a passion because of issues such as those described. I cannot understand, for example, why it is deemed safe to stand on buses and trains - another aspect of public transport that should be regulated.

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[busby]

I am not sure what you mean by "FOLLOW THE RULES"?

But they could be so much better.

Everything from booking to flying. Even expecting £10 for a Gin and Tonic and no ice or lemon or board. Only Crew that are looked after are the pilots. Now wonder the rest of them don't give a monkeys.

Website issues are one thing. But then not being able to resolve it is another.

Without question, the worst airline we have ever used.

As I said, not much choice or I would use another carrier.

Tens of thousands of Ryanair passengers must be wrong,,,You get what it says on the tin,,,always cheaper than the rest,,BUSBY

 

[mikebeaches]

Tens of thousands of Ryanair passengers must be wrong,,,You get what it says on the tin,,,always cheaper than the rest,,BUSBY

I think that should be millions...

In fact 120 million passengers during 2016/17 and projected to be higher in 2017/18, despite many cancelled flights this winter due to pilot rostering problems.

 

[nicholsong]

When I look at cost of a flight I take into consideration the following

Cost of transport to different airports(we have two almost equidistant). If bus, how long/many coffees will one wait at the airport.

Basic Cost of flight, plus all extras I might want, to various convenient airports

Cost of drinks(or free) - we take our own picnic, which is normally better and we can eat when we want.

Transport to destination, from the different airports one has choice to fly to.


Having done the calculations we do not always choose the cheapest

Choice depends -

On time leaving home/arrival at destination.

Free hand-baggage allowance - don't want check-in hold baggage(we are flying to/from MH)

Then comfort of airline.




Then after all that I can say f*ck it we will do the easiest, whatever the cost - but not always.

Geoff

 

[Ivory55]

I got friends who fly on holiday and choose local airport purely because of the hassle of driving/traveling to the main airports. Might be an age thing or wanting a quiet life. Money is on getting old , haha

 

[EuroTrotters]

Better: V6 auto .

Agh, But!. 5 or 7G-Tronic?

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[jaygee]

it all comes down to you get what you pay for

 

[EuroTrotters]

Tens of thousands of Ryanair passengers must be wrong,,,You get what it says on the tin,,,always cheaper than the rest,,BUSBY

We will see

 

[tonyidle]

Agh, But!. 5 or 7G-Tronic?

Don't know. You're trying to frighten me with numbers. It's a true (torque converter) auto that changes so smoothly I haven't decided how many changes it has. So far I've driven it twice - once to collect it then again to have a towbar fitted. I'm looking forward to figuring out the autobox.

 

[ivorantony]

Freddie Laker with sky train was the the initial instigator of cheap airline travel, until BA and and several others airlines ran a below profit policy to put him out of business,

 

[EuroTrotters]

Don't know. You're trying to frighten me with numbers. It's a true (torque converter) auto that changes so smoothly I haven't decided how many changes it has. So far I've driven it twice - once to collect it then again to have a towbar fitted. I'm looking forward to figuring out the autobox.

Get up-to 50 on a straight road in Automatic, then flip the gear lever down(across left -), if it goes to 4, its 5G-Tronic, 6 and its 7G-Tronic.

Freddie Laker with sky train was the the initial instigator of cheap airline travel, until BA and and several others airlines ran a below profit policy to put him out of business,

Makes you wonder if thats what happened to Monarch?

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[SpeedyDux]

Flying should be better than a cheap "bus" service with horrible cramped seats and cabin crew with very low morale who are under pressure to sell you things, and flight crew who are almost too tired to function. It may be cheap but it is often grim. My take is that some LoCo / charter operators are riding their luck and pushing safety margins to the limit. 2017 was an exceptional year. No fatalities. 3 fatal crashes so far this year although I grant you not in Europe.

The skimpy turnaround time between sectors raises a question whether enough time is allowed for all the checks. Making cabin crew clean the aircraft - well, in my experience it isn't clean. You need to bring your own wet wipes to clean the yukky plastic seat on Ryanair. Best not think too much about the sticky gloop you wiped off. The floor is even worse, with stained crunchy carpets.

Slightly off-topic, but bear with me. A surprise at the airport to find that the plane we were going to fly on wasn't a nice shiny Thomson 737-800. Thomson had obtained a very old plane via a small Italian charter company specialising in pilgrim flights for the Catholic Church, who in turn sub-wet-leased the aicraft from a tiny charter outfit in Bratislava. It was an ancient 737-400, one of the hybrid ones that can carry freight by taking half of the seats out. There were big repair patches visible on the hull. Even the grockles who had been drinking hard at the bar before boarding were a bit dismayed.

The toilets on the aircraft were so disgusting I decided to keep my legs crossed until after landing. They were not just grubby, they were third world standard and in dire need of replacement. In the cruise at FL 33 over the Alps the plane was trimmed at an unusually steep nose-up pitch angle, so that wasn't reassuring. So steep that the cabin crew really struggled to push their trolleys up the sloping gangway. You expect a slight pitch angle but this was extreme and a bit worrying.

I checked the history of that aircraft on the internet when I got home to discover it had spent its latter years on short haul service with a Chinese regional airline before being mothballed. Even though the ancient aircraft had allegedly had a recent "C" check the dire state of the toilet made me wonder about corrosion elsewhere and other latent problems. Hardly any 737-400s of that age are still flying and most are now freighters. Only a handful remain in passenger service. The rest have been decommissioned / scrapped. None of this is reassuring. Again, makes you wonder about operators who may be pushing the safety envelope right to the limit to make a slightly bigger profit. I wrote a letter of complaint addressed to the Thomson CEO but received the typical customer service manager's fobbing-off reply which dodged my questions. Very poor. It's all about the money and the rest is PR fluff, and image by advertising.

More good reasons to travel in comfort in a MH.

 

[mikebeaches]

Flying should be better than a cheap "bus" service with horrible cramped seats and cabin crew with very low morale who are under pressure to sell you things, and flight crew who are almost too tired to function. It may be cheap but it is often grim. My take is that some LoCo / charter operators are riding their luck and pushing safety margins to the limit. 2017 was an exceptional year. No fatalities. 3 fatal crashes so far this year although I grant you not in Europe.

The skimpy turnaround time between sectors raises a question whether enough time is allowed for all the checks. Making cabin crew clean the aircraft - well, in my experience it isn't clean. You need to bring your own wet wipes to clean the yukky plastic seat on Ryanair. Best not think too much about the sticky gloop you wiped off. The floor is even worse, with stained crunchy carpets.

Slightly off-topic, but bear with me. A surprise at the airport to find that the plane we were going to fly on wasn't a nice shiny Thomson 737-800. Thomson had obtained a very old plane via a small Italian charter company specialising in pilgrim flights for the Catholic Church, who in turn sub-wet-leased the aicraft from a tiny charter outfit in Bratislava. It was an ancient 737-400, one of the hybrid ones that can carry freight by taking half of the seats out. There were big repair patches visible on the hull. Even the grockles who had been drinking hard at the bar before boarding were a bit dismayed.

The toilets on the aircraft were so disgusting I decided to keep my legs crossed until after landing. They were not just grubby, they were third world standard and in dire need of replacement. In the cruise at FL 33 over the Alps the plane was trimmed at an unusually steep nose-up pitch angle, so that wasn't reassuring. So steep that the cabin crew really struggled to push their trolleys up the sloping gangway. You expect a slight pitch angle but this was extreme and a bit worrying.

I checked the history of that aircraft on the internet when I got home to discover it had spent its latter years on short haul service with a Chinese regional airline before being mothballed. Even though the ancient aircraft had allegedly had a recent "C" check the dire state of the toilet made me wonder about corrosion elsewhere and other latent problems. Hardly any 737-400s of that age are still flying and most are now freighters. Only a handful remain in passenger service. The rest have been decommissioned / scrapped. None of this is reassuring. Again, makes you wonder about operators who may be pushing the safety envelope right to the limit to make a slightly bigger profit. I wrote a letter of complaint addressed to the Thomson CEO but received the typical customer service manager's fobbing-off reply which dodged my questions. Very poor. It's all about the money and the rest is PR fluff, and image by advertising.

More good reasons to travel in comfort in a MH.

That all sounds pretty worrying and does make you wonder.

I've long since lost faith in the legacy charter airlines like Tui/Thomson and Thomas Cook - cramped, often use older planes on short haul routes and tend to be overpriced compared to the likes of Ryanair and easyJet.

And both Ryanair and easyJet operate the youngest fleets of aircraft amongst airlines in Europe, and possibly the world. Certainly much younger than BA for example. I don't believe they ever substitute with older 'wet-lease' aircraft, but each have their own spare planes available to use if there is a serious technical issue.

Agree, the airlines' close scrutiny on costs makes one wonder if any safety corners are being cut, but they have a pretty good safety record to date considering the millions and millions of passengers they have flown over the last twenty years or so. And whilst recognising the cabin crew have to work hard, we've almost never found them - from a customer perspective - to be anything other than professional, friendly and helpful.

As others have mentioned in this thread, many people choose to fly with the low-costs not necessarily because they are cheap, but because they fly convenient routes. We have more choice than ever these days.

 

[nicholsong]

Freddie Laker with sky train was the the initial instigator of cheap airline travel, until BA and and several others airlines ran a below profit policy to put him out of business,

Competiton may have contributed, but his major mistake was that his DC-10s were leased in US$ but his major income was in UK$ and he would have been wise to hedge the currency risk but he did not, banking on the pound strengthenig against the $ - he lost that bet. Also the airline was not properly capitalised - he set it up in the Channel Islands with a capital of £10,000, which would not ave paid a daily fuel bill.

Laker Airways was basically a travel agency - selling tickets for an outfit that had leased aircraft and relying on fuel companies and other suppliers credit.

The FAA in America later refused to recognise him as a 'fit and proper person' to run an airline and refused him a licence, although he did manage to set up a sales operation for a few flights to the e Bahams for gambling, but he did not hold the operator's licence for the airline.

The real pioneer of low-cost airlines was SouthWest Airlines in the US which became very successful and was the model for most of the European and Asian copies.

Geoff

 

[busby]

Competiton may have contributed, but his major mistake was that his DC-10s were leased in US$ but his major income was in UK$ and he would have been wise to hedge the currency risk but he did not, banking on the pound strengthenig against the $ - he lost that bet. Also the airline was not properly capitalised - he set it up in the Channel Islands with a capital of £10,000, which would not ave paid a daily fuel bill.

Laker Airways was basically a travel agency - selling tickets for an outfit that had leased aircraft and relying on fuel companies and other suppliers credit.

The FAA in America later refused to recognise him as a 'fit and proper person' to run an airline and refused him a licence, although he did manage to set up a sales operation for a few flights to the e Bahams for gambling, but he did not hold the operator's licence for the airline.

The real pioneer of low-cost airlines was SouthWest Airlines in the US which became very successful and was the model for most of the European and Asian copies.

Geoff

Think both Ryanair and Easyjet based their model on SouthWest ,,,,,BUSBY.

 

[Lot lover]

Busby, I think that you are correct. IIRC Tony Ryan sent his accountant M O'L over there for a long time to look, listen and learn how South West made it tick. He seems to have been a good learner.

An English friend of mine has bought a retirement house opposite us. This week he flew from Brive to Stansted due to return on Wed next. Total cost of return flight incl seat choice (he is of a Falstaffian build and about 6' 3" with dodgy knees etc) and a weeks parking will be less than EUR 100. Travelling by rail from Colchester to Liv St return would cost between GBP 30 and GBP 50.

Ryanair has made it cheap and easy to travel - long may the firm thrive.

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[EuroTrotters]

Thanks Everyone.

Leaving for Ringway soon!

 

[nicholsong]

Trev

I still call it Ringway - well I was brought up in Wilmslow. Anyway 'Manchester International Airport' is such a mouthful. Different if one is writing because 'MAN' (IATA Code) will do, although their management prefer MIA but if that went on the baggage labels guess where they would end up? Yes, Miami International Airport

 

[tonyidle]

Get up-to 50 on a straight road in Automatic, then flip the gear lever down(across left -), if it goes to 4, its 5G-Tronic, 6 and its 7G-Tronic.

I'd forgotten about the dashboard display .

 

[EuroTrotters]

Well, it all turned out well.

The flight costs were £620 one way for 2 Adults and 2 Children under 9.

The flight attendants were very helpful and friendly (not always the case). One went out of her way to help me and we tipped them upon disembarking.

One thing I did not miss?. The Stag and Hen brigades as we flew to Valencia instead of the usual Alicante. Something I would do more often if there were more direct flights.