Barbara Cassani, CEO of former airline Go, once described Ryanair as a "flying Irish pub". While she didn't say as much, she wasn't referring to the enjoyable bits of an Irish pub - like good music, great conversation and fine stout. She was referring to the bad bits - like having your head shoved aside by the arms of waitresses who are retrieving empty glasses.
When Kerryn and I lived in Ireland, we experienced Ryanair's infamous customer service twice. I will never use them again if I have a choice to use another airline. Obviously other passengers of the budget Irish-based airline feel the same way as I do, because Robert Tyler of the UK began a site called IhateRyanAir. The site is full of angry stories about the experiences of passengers, staff and unfortunate government officials that try to get in the way of the airline's boss, Micheal O'Leary.
Recently Ryanair took Mr Tyler to court to get him to take down his site. "Ryanair complained that the site took unfair advantage of the brand’s name and claimed it hosted damaging and defamatory articles including false comments about its safety, maintenance and operating standards."
If you've ever flown with the airline, the stories on this site are hilarious. Take a look at http://www.ihateryanair.org/ for more. If you haven't, look on it as a warning: don't be fooled by the low prices - Ryanair will ensure your flying experience with them is so bad that you will forever regret trying to save a few dollars or pounds. My experience below is relatively tame.
Dublin, Ireland 2002
At five AM on Monday morning, Kerryn and I awoke to the sound of our alarm clock in the Dublin suburb of Rathmines for the last time. We had breakfast and packed the rest of our stuff into plastic bags. I wheeled our two suitcases out onto the street and hoisted my daypack onto my back. Kerryn turned the lock behind us and pushed the key back under the door.
On the way to the airport, one of Van Morrison’s tunes played over the bus sound system.
“When it’s not always raining, there’ll be days like this. When there’s no-one complaining, there’ll be days like this. Everything falls into place, like the flick of a switch, well my mama told me, there’ll be days like this.”
I reflected back over our last seven months in Ireland and the times I’d had. I’d sung Waltzing Matilda in a pub at Christmas time. I’d seen the hills of Connemarra and jaywalked with the rest of the population across the streets of Dublin. I’d played Gaelic football with real Gaelic people. I’d eaten black pudding for breakfast and sat in the Gravity Bar of the Guinness Brewery to sample Ireland’s most famous stout.
I was still humming Van Morrison’s song when we arrived at the airport. We walked up to Ryan Air’s desk, to check in for our flight to London, for the first leg of our journey back to our home on the other side of the world.
“Sorr, your bags are overweight by over 20 kilograms. We’ll have to charge you another 180 euros to carry everything,” said the attendant
“Oh, that can’t be right. They only weigh 25 kilos each,” I replied.
“Sorr, the baggage limit for Ryan Air is 15 kilograms. You are carrying a lot of other bags. I will not let you on.”
Van Morrison’s song stopped playing in my mind like a needle screeching across an old LP record. We'd paid about 50 Euros each for the tickets, so another 180 Euros was ridiculous.
Our solution: we huffed our way across to a garbage bin and threw in pillows, sheets and lots of other useful things. The Salvation Army or the Red Cross should put a collection service next to every Ryanair check-in, because they would benefit greatly from Ryanair's mean policies that try to crank up advertised 10 Euro airfares (not including booking fees, credit card fees, baggage fees) into 200 Euros with hundreds of unfortunate passenger every day.
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