Today I was charged €120 by Ryanair for being a bit too busy. I had an incredibly hectic morning to finish off all the loose ends at office and was flying out of Malta at 4 pm. I managed to check in online at 12.10. Ryanair, however, has a clause somewhere that if you do not check in online 4 hours before your flight you need to check in at the airport. And pay €60 per person for the privilege. It is not that we have never flown with Ryanair before – we use them regularly – but for some reason we must have always printed our boarding passes a couple of days in advance, so this particular clause had never affected us before.
To make matters worse, we had started the process online at around 11.40, but their system would not accept our credit card to add an extra suitcase to our return flight. But since our last attempt was logged at 12.10, the ice-queen at the counter at the airport told us that the fault is flatly ours and that those were the policies. Not much you can do at that point. You’re at the airport with a holiday booked, you shut up and stump up the cash because it is too late to go back.
We were there again – falling into the Ryanair blackmail. Once you get to the point of no return you practically pay anything to get along with it. And it is not the only trick in the Ryanair hat. Do you need to change a name on the ticket or the date on a flight – sure you can. Just pay €50. Per flight. Did you buy a box of chocolate for your grandma on the way onto the plane? You can take it on board, no problem. As long as you can stuff it into your hand luggage and fit it into a Ryanair inspection box. If not, you can put your suitcase into our hold, no problem. Just pay €60.
Ryanair seems to be the only company in the world that thrives on being an asshole. It has taken being strict with its customers and developed it into a fine art. It successfully lures you to its site with promises of 1c flights, even though you end up paying an extra €50 by the time you actually board the plane. It cheats you into paying little bits and bobs over and above the price by hiding costs at different stages of the buying process – up to the very end.
What really frustrates me is that there is really no need to do it. If they, for example, simply advertised the final price for their flight it would still be bloody amazing. If they weren’t so obsessively anal about their on-board luggage policy, their flights would be much more fun to take.
In theory their idea is ingenious. They took the frivolous frills out of the flight model and offer everything as an extra cost. I don’t mind them charging me for food, for example. I can take my own food on board if I wanted to, but at least I am given the choice. I prefer it to being treated to cheap, crass food on a full-price airline. I don’t mind the fact that you are encouraged to travel light, if I want to take a suit case I just pay a bit more.
So why do I still fly with them despite having paid €12 per minute for our mistake? Well we still got away from Malta for under €240 (for two tickets). The total time spent on a flight pales in comparison to the time spent abroad when on holiday, and for the price I would have spent on the flight with a mainstream airline I usually manage to sort out most of my accommodation too.
Will I ever be happy flying Ryanair? Nope, not if they keep this shit service up. Will I ever fly Ryanair if any other airline on the same route is even close to matching them on price? Nope. Will I keep taking Ryanair flights? Yes, but I will hate every minute of it and I will never willingly recommend their service.