Why is RyanAir so persistent?

[MRFREAK]

Right, but let's be honest here.. Does any of the Ryanair kind of publicity came across to you as "good publicity"? The only thing they did was p*** people off, in fact this very thread confirms this yet again.

That is exactly what RyanAir wants, they gets into the press by doing and saying stupid things that makes people "oh dear lord what a crappy and stupid airline" then people starts talking about them and then RyanAir is on everyones lips. So everyone starts hearing about RyanAir And that is what Simon Spies ment by "Even bad publicity is good publicity"

[GEnx]

That is exactly what RyanAir wants, they gets into the press by doing and saying stupid things that makes people "oh dear lord what a crappy and stupid airline" then people starts talking about them and then RyanAir is on everyones lips. So everyone starts hearing about RyanAir And that is what Simon Spies ment by "Even bad publicity is good publicity"

I know, that's what I said numerous times in this thread..

[MRFREAK]

Oh okay. I might have skipped that somehow 

Sorry 

[[ATA] - lilius]

I fly Ryanair only when there's no other option.
When you fly for business and you have to pay for every kilogram you put on the a/c, you realize that Ryanair is not cheaper than other airlines. I wuld rather fly Lufthansa paying a bit more but without the worry of how much weight I take aboard, or what to do if a volcanic cloud messes up everything, I can get peltny of drinks during my flight and if the company makes a misteake, they pay for it without whining.

O'Leary is the classic irish: he plays the wisemouth but as soon as he see some troubles he starts whining like a child. When the business is not doing as he expected to, he starts shooting to everyone. Oh, look, Ireland is almost broke and the banks are tightening the ropes for the credit to companies? O'Leary says that he will "think about" the next a/c order...

O'Leary is just an accountant that should do what accoutants do: sit in an office filling in Tax Office forms and shut up his mouth, leaving the business to people who run airlines for a living.
And stop whining about a rule which is hitting hard everybody in the industry.

Whoa...way of bashing the irish there. Careful with that.

Flying BA, LH or SAS inside Europe is severely overrated if you dont have a connection to catch. You will find yourself sitting with a 70 euro coca cola you have 1h to finish and you probably paid equally for a suitcase you never even brought. Business class under the same conditions are even a worse waste. Lets pull these shades and get cosy in here...

The money you pay to get the "free drinks" in econ easily covers an evening in a pretty nice restaurant. For people who enjoy good food and drink that is a much better option in my opinion.

It worries me that you call OLeary "just an accountant" when he apparently is a BEAST in business development, marketing and cost cutting. Im not saying that all airlines should follow his business model but they definately have plenty to learn from him in modern airline industry.

[MRFREAK]

Sorry i can't hold this one back since it's so funny 

Mr. O'Leary must be a expert in ashclouds. He just whined once again about the closed airspaces. He claims that the english MET Office is making calculations while blindfolded.

He also states that the aviation associations in europe is stupid to not let airlines fly, and that they will make the same chaos like last year. Also that i have personally have talked to the Boeing company that their aircrafts can fly through highconcentraded zones without any damages.

I wonder if his comments gives backfire, as people might think he wants to risk the passengers of RyanAirs safety.

[MRFREAK]

@Ilius

That much of an expert in aviation am i not. But i might have a fling of what your point is.


Anyway. O'Leary might be a little smart. But i can't forget the fact that he once trashtalked BA, Lufthansa and SAS in the worldwide press once, that easy, because that is something that is really uncool, also he persoanlly tried to lure some of SASs pilots to work for RyanAir at a time where SAS had to negotiate new working terms with their pilots. That was really uncool aswell. Even if it frightened the pilots a bit.

[[ATA] - lilius]

Yes MRFREAK I think I even remember that thing with the pilots.

Ryanair gets trashtalked all the time and unfortunately he has a good point when you look at SAS for example not doing much but costing money for our governments.

[EYguy]

Lilius, the cost cutting, SHOWING OFF and business development of Mr. O'Leary can be discussed quite in detail.

Here are some examples of how he's just considering the accounting problem:
-he keeps killing routes when apo administration do not comply to his requests. From a point of view of business development this is not a good strategy and you know why? Because a good manager who really cares about business development looks for win-win solutions, not "I win, you get a kick in your butts" as O'Leary does.
-showing off: he keeps talking loud about competitors not behaving correctly (especially AZ on the Milan-Rome route) but then he wants people to stand during flight (suggestion dating back to 2009), addresses safety concerns about rival airlines (AZ, while merging with AP) one year after FR f/a were accused of not having been trained properly. While AZ is one of the safest airlines of the industry (at least one good thing about that crappy airline).
He keeps comparing his airline to other airlines while I've never seen Lufthansa, Air France or BA comparing themselves to Ryanair (nice move... Like comparing Mercedes to some crappy car).
He uses the stupidity of his customers to lure them catching his planes, while people do not understand that if Ryanair is one of the most on-time airlines in Europe is because they do not have connecting flights and, because they have you paying for your luggage, they have lower turn around times than regular airlines. But if you fly from BGY to BUV and from BUV to, say, SHA and your first flight is late, you'll miss the second one and no one will ever refund your ticket.
-cost cutting: I never heard the allegiations of fueling the a/c to the minimum required, as it happend with FR instead. I never heard f/a of other airlines telling me:"We're sorry, but the lavatory ran out of water and can't be used anymore". Me:"Why did it run out of water?" F/a:"We didn't have enough time to fill up the tank during turn around" WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

Talking about other airlines: I always travel with luggage and, considering my PC case and business bag, I would be pay a fortune flying frigging Ryanair.
Then again: if I'm coming to your wonderful country for a meeting in Stockholm, it's better for me to travel from MXP and land in Arlanda, then catch the train from there to the town centre where I can meet my customer. But if I'm going to Jonkoeping, it's more convenient to fly from BGY to Skavsta. Flying to Skavsta even while flying to Stockholm is stupid because I have to pay a fortune for the bus and travel for almost 100kms to get in the towncentre.
Talking about time: if I had to calculate all the car rental invoices, check in luggage for a bag being 1kg overweight or the gate agent driving me mad for my business bag, I'd probably pay more for a Ryanair flight than a Lufthansa Italy flight.
Then I've my time: time is money, so all the time I spend doing nothing is wasted money. What O'Leary never says and what he never mentions is that he flies to bumf*** nowhere... I never complained about Easyjet, because they have the same routes and lower prices than other airlines.

What I hate about Ryanair is that continous whining of O'Leary and being a wisemouth (which I learned to consider a eat of most of the inhabitants of the Irish island), selling cheap marketing for a crappy airline, misleading customers (and Ryanair got busted several times by the EU, you should know that, for misleading ads!).

All the money I spend on a "free Coke" on Lufthansa is what I would probably pay for a rental car and a snack in a godforsaken apo in the middle of nowhere. Plus, I got my frequent flyer miles, I have my business class lounge access, fast track for security, no problem with luggage and so on... Oh, and I never fly business class in Europe or flights shorter than 6 hrs. I usually do that when going to USA, South Africa, Asia or like now that I'm going back to Europe from Australia.

I just do not understand those people who keep saying that FR is a good airline. Ok, it is a good airline provided that: you're travelling with your toothbrush and nothing more, you are not in a hurry to go anywhere, you want to leave from a godforsaken place at impossible hours, you like to travel in a seat that is smaller than one you could find on a bus, you can stand unprofessional FR f/a (not all of them, most), you do not need your PC and the power plug. For everything else, you have a Miles and More Mastercard!

[Morris]

I think that O'Leary will say/do just about anything to get the press talking about Ryanair, as opposed to having to pay for ads.  It's why, every once in awhile, they talk about charging to use the toilet.  They'll never actually do that, because a) if they did they'd have drunk tourists urinating in the cabin rather than pay and b) it would probably depress drink sales, but it's a great fallback to get the media up in arms.

They have, I been on a Ryanair aircraft to Murcia, Spain and you had to pay £1 or 1Euro to use the toilet.

[slither360]

If only we could charge pax that on AWS

[MRFREAK]

First of all. I didn't imagine that this thread would be so "popular"  

Second of all, that was one heck of a post there EYguy  

And last but not least, im glad that im not the only one who doesn't like RyanAir. I discussed about RyanAir with my teacher last monday. And she thinks "they are so fantastic and blah blah blah. They are so cheap i spend less than 20 dollars on a flight to Madrid" and so on.

But what i couldn't understand was, HOW THE HELL COULD SHE GET IT SO CHEAP?!?!?! Since when i check the prices, i always end up on a price at approx. 100 dollars and even more with a bag. And she was there for 1 week. That's when i started thinking, eeeew.... gross! Didn't she bring clean clothes on the trip?? And when i asked how she could get it cheap? she was all blabbering about, she just went in a booked some tickets etc. etc. and then she started "learning" me how everything works when booking tickets and telling me that everything i say about RyanAir and extra fees is completely bulls***.

But then i got mad and told her that my dad works at SAS and my brother works at a travel agency, so i KNOW how things WORK while booking tickets. And guess how it ended up?  

[EYguy]

You got a bad mark?

I'm not saying that Ryanair is the evil, but it is not even that good... And, when you catch planes for a living, Ryanair is probably bullcrap!
If you look around wisely with Lufthansa Italy, you can get a r/t ticket to destination from MXP for 99€ a/r ALL INCLUDED, no hidden fees and blah blah blah...

As I said, when going to Southern Sweden, flying BGY-SKA is ok, but then I just barely can stand the people I meet on the plane. I just hate those Italians (because I think it's only Italians doing so) that start clapping their hands at landing... I mean, I park my car, my brother lands his B77F and nobody claps his/her hands! It's his job!

Btw, I'd rather spend 20€ more on a regular flight than flying Ryanair...

Edo

[[ATA] - lilius]

Lilius, the cost cutting, SHOWING OFF and business development of Mr. O'Leary can be discussed quite in detail.

Here are some examples of how he's just considering the accounting problem:
-he keeps killing routes when apo administration do not comply to his requests. From a point of view of business development this is not a good strategy and you know why? Because a good manager who really cares about business development looks for win-win solutions, not "I win, you get a kick in your butts" as O'Leary does.
-showing off: he keeps talking loud about competitors not behaving correctly (especially AZ on the Milan-Rome route) but then he wants people to stand during flight (suggestion dating back to 2009), addresses safety concerns about rival airlines (AZ, while merging with AP) one year after FR f/a were accused of not having been trained properly. While AZ is one of the safest airlines of the industry (at least one good thing about that crappy airline).
He keeps comparing his airline to other airlines while I've never seen Lufthansa, Air France or BA comparing themselves to Ryanair (nice move... Like comparing Mercedes to some crappy car).
He uses the stupidity of his customers to lure them catching his planes, while people do not understand that if Ryanair is one of the most on-time airlines in Europe is because they do not have connecting flights and, because they have you paying for your luggage, they have lower turn around times than regular airlines. But if you fly from BGY to BUV and from BUV to, say, SHA and your first flight is late, you'll miss the second one and no one will ever refund your ticket.
-cost cutting: I never heard the allegiations of fueling the a/c to the minimum required, as it happend with FR instead. I never heard f/a of other airlines telling me:"We're sorry, but the lavatory ran out of water and can't be used anymore". Me:"Why did it run out of water?" F/a:"We didn't have enough time to fill up the tank during turn around" WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

Talking about other airlines: I always travel with luggage and, considering my PC case and business bag, I would be pay a fortune flying frigging Ryanair.
Then again: if I'm coming to your wonderful country for a meeting in Stockholm, it's better for me to travel from MXP and land in Arlanda, then catch the train from there to the town centre where I can meet my customer. But if I'm going to Jonkoeping, it's more convenient to fly from BGY to Skavsta. Flying to Skavsta even while flying to Stockholm is stupid because I have to pay a fortune for the bus and travel for almost 100kms to get in the towncentre.
Talking about time: if I had to calculate all the car rental invoices, check in luggage for a bag being 1kg overweight or the gate agent driving me mad for my business bag, I'd probably pay more for a Ryanair flight than a Lufthansa Italy flight.
Then I've my time: time is money, so all the time I spend doing nothing is wasted money. What O'Leary never says and what he never mentions is that he flies to bumf*** nowhere... I never complained about Easyjet, because they have the same routes and lower prices than other airlines.

What I hate about Ryanair is that continous whining of O'Leary and being a wisemouth (which I learned to consider a eat of most of the inhabitants of the Irish island), selling cheap marketing for a crappy airline, misleading customers (and Ryanair got busted several times by the EU, you should know that, for misleading ads!).

All the money I spend on a "free Coke" on Lufthansa is what I would probably pay for a rental car and a snack in a godforsaken apo in the middle of nowhere. Plus, I got my frequent flyer miles, I have my business class lounge access, fast track for security, no problem with luggage and so on... Oh, and I never fly business class in Europe or flights shorter than 6 hrs. I usually do that when going to USA, South Africa, Asia or like now that I'm going back to Europe from Australia.

I just do not understand those people who keep saying that FR is a good airline. Ok, it is a good airline provided that: you're travelling with your toothbrush and nothing more, you are not in a hurry to go anywhere, you want to leave from a godforsaken place at impossible hours, you like to travel in a seat that is smaller than one you could find on a bus, you can stand unprofessional FR f/a (not all of them, most), you do not need your PC and the power plug. For everything else, you have a Miles and More Mastercard!

How can you say that he doesnt know how to develop a company? Ryanair has shown ridiculous growth, is making huge profits and pays dividends to its owners. This must be the whole purpose of running a privately owned company. Their financial numbers must be unmatched in the industry even.

I certainly understand that their negotiating is pretty ruthless. Smaller airports are practically PAYING for having them land there. I wish they didnt but its more a result of politics and politicians than Ryanair themselves.

Its not forbidden to compare yourself with other airlines. I dont understand what kind of argument that is.

So you travel in business. That is good for you. If you look at Ryanairs website it pretty much screams "stay away business travelers". The conditions for traveling using the on board luggage are very clearly written on the page too. Why are you even comparing a business lounge equipped airport with some small secondary hub? Hopefully you dont complain about charterflights also because they are unfitting for your type of travel.

Skavsta is far from Stockholm, it would serve better as a Linköping destination. But if we look at Gothenburg Ryanair is using Gothenburg City Airport and not Landvetter which is much further outside the city.

OLeary is unconventional and thats why things should be taken with a grain of salt. No reason to get upset about him really. See the competition as something healthy for the classic european companies. If they are able to survive it that is.

[MRFREAK]

I talked with my dad about RyanAir a couple of weeks ago, and he told me that some airports gives the airlines some good bargains if they start flying to/from their airport, and RyanAir gets a s***load of bargains.

And about that only italians clap their hands after a landing it's not true. I once couldn't help myself from not start clapping, and suddenly the whole damn cabin clapped

[alexgv1]

I talked with my dad about RyanAir a couple of weeks ago, and he told me that some airports gives the airlines some good bargains if they start flying to/from their airport, and RyanAir gets a s***load of bargains.

Yes Stansted dropped their passenger fees from £16 per head to £1 per head when Ryanair went to base there (STN was a failure back then, a backwater, until RYR came along). As I mentioned earlier, 30-50% off the list price for Boeing 737-800s. Bargains indeed.

Also Charleroi practically paid RYR to come there when EU basing opened up in the late nineties, there was fierce competition with other airports like Orly and they were clawing over each other to get an RYR base there. Look at the good it has done, before, Charleroi was a small strip with cattle grazing on the runway but now it has terminal facilities, has created hundreds of local jobs and really revitalised the local economy.

Recently, RYR closed their base and withdrew their aircraft in Belfast City airport, because the government never extended then runway as they promised, limiting the destinations to the UK and not being able to fly to the South coast of Spain, etc (where the money is). Sounds fair enough to me, somebody didn't keep their side of the deal, neither did Ryanair. They put the planes and staff elsewhere, where they could be used to their full by someone who would appreciate them, e.g. their new bases in Eastern Europe.

[LemonButt]

The bottom line is people vote with their feet (and dollars).  The fact people keep flying Ryanair means the company is meeting their needs.  Considering most flights are <2 hours, most people are willing to deal with a couple hours of cramped conditions to get somewhere cheap.  You can easily spend twice as much on another airline to find yourself on another flight just as cramped and uncomfortable.

In terms of ruthless negotiations, if you haven't noticed, the airline industry has been in the tank the past 10 years or so.  Most airports have spent millions, if not billions for expansions only to find them sitting empty.  If planes aren't flying, there get zero revenue but still have the huge overhead costs of maintaining terminals/gates.  Airlines who don't expect airports to cater to their needs when they aren't anywhere near capacity would be failing their shareholders.

You also have to consider that RyanAir has a brand to maintain for being low cost.  If an airport charges $30 instead of $3 for passenger fees, that means their prices go up accordingly and thus they aren't helping their brand by offering more expensive tickets.  In the US, Southwest does the same exact thing.  They recently started flying into Greenville/Spartanburg (GSP) near me due to the low cost of operating there (Allegiant uses it as a focus city with their 30 year old MD-80s).  The other nearby major airports--CLT and ATL, are much MUCH more expensive.  Even the small podunk airport where I live in Asheville (AVL) charges 2x as much to fly into AVL versus GSP.  Heck, taxes are so high here they don't even print the Asheville newspaper here anymore--they print it in Greenville and truck it into Asheville every morning because it's cheaper to do so.  If it weren't for the fact Asheville is such a big tourist destination, no one would ever fly into AVL unless it was for business.

[EYguy]

Lilius, I can find you 10 more other flag carrier that pay dividend to their shareholder and get bottomline results as Ryanair does (i.e., Lufthansa, IMHO the best flag carrier in Europe).

LCC are growing fast but in my opinion they're like this "chinese mania" that hit Europe, having peope buying imported chinese crap that sells for nothing, but also last 24 hrs before breaking up!
If you talk about leisure travellers, RYR is probably their best option but I'm lucky enough to travel for business. I'm not travelling business class (read what I wrote: I do that only when I'm travelling ULH) but I do appreciate what airlines do in order to give me that "extra yard" (like the priority security lane or the business lounge access).

As you and Lemonbutt said, it is a matter of taxed: but what I really despise are all those people who like to save on apo taxes and then pay huge amount of money in renting a car or catching a bus/train to their destination, basically cutting to zero their price advantage.
Moreover, when I book a rental car (if I need one) when travelling with my fav airline, I usually get a 15 or 20% rebate on the basic price when booking it through the airline's website!

I bet you've seen the movie "Up in the Air": because my lifestyle used to be very similar to the one of the main character, I'm sure you can understand why I do not travel Ryanair and why O'Leary for me is just an accountant.
I have experienced better level of service when travelling Easyjet, which is a LCC like RYR but travellin to major apos... And they do not keep whining, trashtalking and showing off like RYR does...

Edo

[Lazybee]

Am I correct in understanding that captains that work for Ryanair get paid bonuses for a quick turn-around time and reductions if they fall behind the allocated turnaround time of 25mins!? That isn't doing much for safety, certain checks maybe missed and taxing speeds increased. There also seems to be a saying that i hear creeping up more and more: You never see a ryanair taxying less than 30knots.
Look, I know that they aim to be dirt cheap and an airline which you pay for what you get, but they need to bear in mind that actually we are the customers and the ones that are paying. I have never flown Ryanair and never will unless they get their act together, because they bully customers around (and airports for that matter). I'd quite happily pay a little bit extra to fly with someone like Monarch, Easyjet or Thomson Airways   

[thedr2]

Am I correct in understanding that captains that work for Ryanair get paid bonuses for a quick turn-around time and reductions if they fall behind the allocated turnaround time of 25mins!?

One of the glider pilots I fly with is also a first officer with FR. I can ask him if you like.


Michael O'Leary is a very clever man. Don't anybody doubt that. Most people love to have a good rant at his airline, and the people on here are no exception, but it's all this big clever ruse he's been running. Because when you decide you need a dirt cheap flight to europe, the first thing those same people will type in the search bar is "ryanair.com".

[Dave4468]

Annoyingly Dan is right.

I hate Ryanair with a passion, I don't like O'Leary, I don't like the way they operate, I don't like their attitude, I worry that sooner or later they are going to cause a terrible accident. But, I might need to go to Germany for my university dissertation and Ryanair have tickets for £50rtn.

And ironically the airport in the middle of nowhere they fly to is near where I want to be!