Ryanair: Six new measures to improve Customer Service

coolshannagh28

Is the new Ryanair customer friendly approach a quid pro quo for the lifting of the travel tax in the budget?

Sleepy

No, it was a response to some awful PR they were getting in the UK.

coolshannagh28

Ryanair have been getting adverse publicity for years and it never seemed to matter, it seems strange that Michael O Leary should come all over as a nice guy and promises a much more customer friendly approach days before a budget which removes one of his main gripes with govt policy , Now off on a crusade to bring millions more tourists into Ireland.

PeadarCo

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

Ryanair have been getting adverse publicity for years and it never seemed to matter, it seems strange that Michael O Leary should come all over as a nice guy and promises a much more customer friendly approach days before a budget which removes one of his main gripes with govt policy , Now off on a crusade to bring millions more tourists into Ireland.

The difference this time is that it's Ryanair shareholders i.e. the people who own the company and are essentially Michael O Leary's boss that complained. They seemed to have enough and told him to change how Ryanair operates. If he ignores Shareholders he would risk losing this job very quickly.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dff5f53a-21fd-11e3-bb64-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2i0nkjvr4

spank_inferno

Agreed.

Their larger shareholders have concerns.

Do you think an airline carrying 20 times our nations population annualy will about-turn because of our modest budget change?

McNulty737

There are several factors. Number one being increased competition in the low cost market with the likes of Easyjet, Norwegian and Vueling (you can almost throw Aer Lingus in there these days) offering a much nicer service for only a marginally higher fare. Now add in the fact that Ryanair's cost base is increasing and forecast to increase alot over the next few years, in particular with relation to staff costs/social contributions which they have dodged for years (see the Marseille ruling) which essentially means fares have to increase.

You cannot keep offering such a poor service with ever increasing fares and competition. It has nothing to do with the budget.

MadYaker

Poor service? I think Ryanair offer a great service. No nonsense airline that is always on time and offers return flights for the price of a night the town? I fly with them on short trips at least twice a year and can honestly say I have never had any problems. They have opened up European travel to the masses. I'm not rich so if it wasn't for them offering cheap flights I wouldn't have been able to visit half the countries I've visited.

IMO the only bad publicity they get comes from idiots who don't read or are too stupid to understand the terms and conditions.

What has them getting bad publicity in the UK anyway?

branie

MadYaker wrote: »

Poor service? I think Ryanair offer a great service. No nonsense airline that is always on time and offers return flights for the price of a night the town? I fly with them on short trips at least twice a year and can honestly say I have never had any problems. They have opened up European travel to the masses. I'm not rich so if it wasn't for them offering cheap flights I wouldn't have been able to visit half the countries I've visited.

IMO the only bad publicity they get comes from idiots who don't read or are too stupid to understand the terms and conditions.

What has them getting bad publicity in the UK anyway?

Have you not read the horror stories about them in the papers?

MadYaker

The only paper I read is the Irish Times, don't think they had anything about it, so no. But I'll do some googling.

Sand

I've flown with Ryanair several times and never had any problems with them. If you're trying to bring on board a case about the size of a short adult woman as hand luggage, or you expect a 500 Euro experience for a 5 euro ticket price, yeah, you will have problems.

Other than that any passenger taking any flight out of Dublin Airport on any airline ought to visit the Ryanair gate, find a member of staff and thank them for taking on and beating the Aer Lingus monopoly. Just as to be properly thankful for the bargain they're getting on whatever flight they're taking.

everdead.ie

I think this new approach is business as usual for Ryanair, every time O'Leary says he'll stay an extra year Ryanair's share price soars no one but O'Leary is going to say when he goes unless customers stop paying for Ryanair flights which despite all the complaining they refuse to do.


This is just to facilitate growing the airline at a higher rate than it's peers and not much more.

Sleepy

It's a response to the market. If Ryanair want to increase their market share further, they need to increase their service levels. Those of us who are happy to pay low fares for bus levels of service already fly with them, if they want to attract those who still glamorize air travel, they need to improve the perception of their service.

TBH, even as a fan of the airline, there are small changes would make a big difference to the experience imo: get rid of the fanfare on landing, train staff to be less confrontational when enforcing the travel rules (no need to change them, if your bag's too big / you didn't print your boarding card / don't think the rules apply to you, tough **** imo), clean up the website etc. will go a long way and as far as I can see, that's what they're doing.

On the Ireland / UK routes at least there isn't much of a perceptible difference in service levels between Aer Lingus and Ryanair, based on my flying over the past couple of years all I can think of are:

The annoying fanfare on Ryanair.
The chance of getting one of the awful turbo-props with Aer Lingus (Regional).
Slightly more sales announcements on Ryanair.
The slightly higher chance of a delay on Aer Lingus.
The much better breakfast available to purchase on the Aer Lingus jets.
The cringe inducing "St." names of the Aer Lingus jets (personal gripe in fairness, I really don't think our religious history is something a company should be perpetuating).
The "brisk" nature of some of the Ryanair staff versus a somewhat condescending / sneering attitude from a noticeable contingent of the Aer Lingus cabin crew.
Better looking cabin crew on Ryanair

branie

I never noticed a sneer on the face of any Aer Lingus staff when I flew with them.

namenotavailablE

I'm an occasional flyer and have used Ryanair a number of times. In general I've been OK with the service but was always of the "well, I only paid €X for the flight to destination Y which is cheaper than the train to Dublin". The planes are usually clean, obviously the usual 'leg-room/ space to manoeuvre limitations apply. Staff tended to be OK, occasionally you'd find a sullen stewardess but nothing too much to worry about.

My own view was if they are going to precisely where you wanted to go they were fine- for example, the time I went to Madrid they actually flew directly into Madrid Compare that to going to Frankfurt where you face a c 2 hour bus journey each way costing something in the region of €20+ to get from Frankfurt Hahn to Frankfurt. On occasion, I've witnessed passengers standing for the duration of the bus journey.

I pretty much stopped using them after the reports of the extent to which they were cutting costs by curtailing the quantity of surplus fuel they allowed to be loaded into the plane. It just unnerves me when they consider that "statistically" such an allowance is not needed for certain airports. Periodic reports of mayday landings by Ryanair planes add to my fears. I don't want to be 'the outlier' in their mathematical experiment so these days wherever possible tend to fly with the competition

ArmaniJeanss

namenotavailabl wrote: »

I pretty much stopped using them after the reports of the extent to which they were cutting costs by curtailing the quantity of surplus fuel they allowed to be loaded into the plane. It just unnerves me when they consider that "statistically" such an allowance is not needed for certain airports. Periodic reports of mayday landings by Ryanair planes add to my fears. I don't want to be 'the outlier' in their mathematical experiment so these days wherever possible tend to fly with the competition

Of the reasons to not fly Ryanair (and some are valid reasons depending on what is important to the customer) I think this fuel one is fairly mad.

The minimum amount of fuel needed is set by an internationals safety body, and I'd hazard a guess that this minimum is a figure way way above what is actually needed - it'll quite correctly be a massively conservative figure catering for the worst possible combination of circumstances (unforecast weather, atc failures across part of the grid, airports shut on the ground) to ensure that whatever happens you have enough time to get to another airport, which in Europe (99% of Ryanair flights) is probably never more than 50 miles away anyway.

maninasia

You need to have the stats behind you if you are quibbling their safety processes, they have a nasty habit of suing people who post such things online.

bbsrs

maninasia wrote: »

You need to have the stats behind you if you are quibbling their safety processes, they have a nasty habit of suing people who post such things online.

Defending the good name of your company is hardly a nasty habit more of a good practice really if you have an excellent track record and are being labeled unsafe by sensationalist journalism.

clumsyklutz

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1025/482625-ryanair/

About time is what I say. As a regular RyanAir passenger, who absolutely detests those announcements at 6:30 in the morning, this is great news.

The reduction in baggage fees and re-printing of boarding passes is also a much welcomed change.

But most of all the extra luggage (equivalent to a duty free or a small handbag) may now be brought on along with your carry on.

Hopefully these changes may make for a more pleasent flight. What does everyone else think?

ncmc

clumsyklutz wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1025/482625-ryanair/

About time is what I say. As a regular RyanAir passenger, who absolutely detests those announcements at 6:30 in the morning, this is great news.

The reduction in baggage fees and re-printing of boarding passes is also a much welcomed change.

But most of all the extra luggage (equivalent to a duty free or a small handbag) may now be brought on along with your carry on.

Hopefully these changes may make for a more pleasent flight. What does everyone else think?

Great news. At last a company listening to customer feed back and doing something about it. The allowance for a handbag is a great step forward, that was always one of the most annoying aspects of Ryanair, an awkward shaped handbag could take up most of your allowance!

Any ideas when these are being implemented? Flying with them on Dec 6th and hoping they will apply then.

munchkin_utd

now if they would only remove the necessity to enter passport details for journeys where its of no relevance(i.e. every single journey which is NOT headng to spain) which is an almighty pain especially when checking in a family.

And thats if you have them to hand in the first place, which isnt the case for a lot of folks like myself who do various things like this during quiet times at work.

clumsyklutz

ncmc wrote: »

Great news. At last a company listening to customer feed back and doing something about it. The allowance for a handbag is a great step forward, that was always one of the most annoying aspects of Ryanair, an awkward shaped handbag could take up most of your allowance!

Any ideas when these are being implemented? Flying with them on Dec 6th and hoping they will apply then.

Be careful to check their websites, they do give dimensions, so make sure your bag isn't over that! My handbag is small enough so I should be ok!

I believe they said the rule about bags etc will come into effect in December so I believe you may be in luck!

I think it's the same for the 'quiet flights' (before 8am) which I really like the sound of as most of my flights are at God awful times of the morning!

clumsyklutz

munchkin_utd wrote: »

now if they would only remove the necessity to enter passport details for journeys where its of no relevance(i.e. every single journey which is NOT headng to spain) which is an almighty pain especially when checking in a family.

And thats if you have them to hand in the first place, which isnt the case for a lot of folks like myself who do various things like this during quiet times at work.

I know it's a pain in the bloody neck! I had to check myself, partner and four others ( my family) in on a flight to Biarritz last year, six sets of passport details, printing everyones boarding passes - nightmare!

I now just take a photograph on my phone of both our passports so I don't have to have them to hand and delete when I'm done.

ncmc

clumsyklutz wrote: »

Be careful to check their websites, they do give dimensions, so make sure your bag isn't over that! My handbag is small enough so I should be ok!

I believe they said the rule about bags etc will come into effect in December so I believe you may be in luck!

I think it's the same for the 'quiet flights' (before 8am) which I really like the sound of as most of my flights are at God awful times of the morning!

I can understand them having a limit on the size of the handbag, some handbags are as big as a cabin case!

clumsyklutz wrote: »

I know it's a pain in the bloody neck! I had to check myself, partner and four others ( my family) in on a flight to Biarritz last year, six sets of passport details, printing everyones boarding passes - nightmare!

I now just take a photograph on my phone of both our passports so I don't have to have them to hand and delete when I'm done.

That's a brilliant idea! Must remember to do that!

clumsyklutz

NCMC, yeah I've seen ladies pulling handbags out of their cases that could fit a weeks shopping in them!

Thanks! It's a lifesaver, especially when you're trying to do it at work/internet cafe, more discreet!

ScottSF

All welcome announcements to be sure, but they haven't done anything to save us time.

Like mentioned above and as we all know, their website is a horrible mess. Too many screens, too many checkboxes and dropdown lists, no way to login and save family data and passport details (every other airline has this), etc...

If Ryanair is about saving money and time (getting there on time being part of that), I hope they will focus on streamlining the ticket purchase and web check-in process. I can follow all the rules to avoid extra fees, so I rather save my time when dealing with their website. Looking forward to future smart-thinking announcements from Ryanair!

kerry4sam

Yeah I am liking this new approach by Ryanair so I am. Also, guys, have a look at this thread over in Aviation & Airlines. Defo worth a read

grumpymunster

I would imagine they have reached a critical mass where they need to hold onto customers as well as generate new ones. For all of their perceived sins they do have excellent management and I assume now is time for a change.

It is years since I flew with Ryanair but measures such as this would certainly encourage me to do so again.

barnabybear

"Ryanair is to operate quiet flights prior to 8am and after 9pm."
My last Ryanair flight (after 9pm) contained a large party of rowdy drunken youths having a sing-song. I hope they will be silenced too.

Fred Swanson

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sarumite

I think Ryanair have perhaps gone too far in terms of penny pinching. Some of their policies just don't make sense. The idea that I can have the book in my pocket but I can't have it in my hand was one of the most ridiculous experiences I have had with them.

clumsyklutz

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yeah, he mentioned that, starting with removing the recaptcha from November.

Louche Lad

ScottSF wrote: »

All welcome announcements to be sure, but they haven't done anything to save us time.

Like mentioned above and as we all know, their website is a horrible mess. Too many screens, too many checkboxes and dropdown lists, no way to login and save family data and passport details (every other airline has this), etc...

If Ryanair is about saving money and time (getting there on time being part of that), I hope they will focus on streamlining the ticket purchase and web check-in process. I can follow all the rules to avoid extra fees, so I rather save my time when dealing with their website. Looking forward to future smart-thinking announcements from Ryanair!

Too many screens, I quite agree. I hope they set defaults to "No" as I hate having to hunt for "No travel insurance/car hire/train tickets/sports equipment/Samsonite luggage/musical instruments/reserved seats etc. etc. required" in all those drop-down lists. In fact, they could stick them all on one separate screen. In fact, they could try following Amazon's "One-Click" thing.

Mr.Micro

sarumite wrote: »

I think Ryanair have perhaps gone too far in terms of penny pinching. Some of their policies just don't make sense. The idea that I can have the book in my pocket but I can't have it in my hand was one of the most ridiculous experiences I have had with them.

O'Leary went too far in his mugging of his customers. Pay for the scrum to get a seat and before one gets the seat every attempt to get money with hand luggage, as in too heavy, wrong size, wrong shape, etc. Next it would have been wrong colour of bag today. Ryanair needs to get some class and show respect for it's paying customers.

spank_inferno

Will all of this lead to a rise in ticket prices?

If the bottom line costs more it will hurt them.

Red Crow

Mr.Micro wrote: »

O'Leary went too far in his mugging of his customers. Pay for the scrum to get a seat and before one gets the seat every attempt to get money with hand luggage, as in too heavy, wrong size, wrong shape, etc. Next it would have been wrong colour of bag today. Ryanair needs to get some class and show respect for it's paying customers.

Airlines showed plenty of respect for their customers in the past by overcharging them by a fortune for plane travel. Low cost flying has changed this.

While I hate the scrum to get onto the plane it stops people dillydallying in the shops or bar at the airport. People know what they get from Ryanair. I don't see the big deal as you pay for what you get.

Fr Tod Umptious

Red Crow wrote: »

Airlines showed plenty of respect for their customers in the past by overcharging them by a fortune for plane travel. Low cost flying has changed this.

While I hate the scrum to get onto the plane it stops people dillydallying in the shops or bar at the airport. People know what they get from Ryanair. I don't see the big deal as you pay for what you get.

I think unassigned seating is brilliant
People just get on the plane and sit in the first seat they are happy with.
The person in 15f is not queuing up in the alis waiting for the person in seat 5F puts their bags in the overhead

Yamanoto

spank_inferno wrote: »

Will all of this lead to a rise in ticket prices?

If the bottom line costs more it will hurt them.

If their efforts genuinely result in a more customer friendly experience, it could actually yield a real dividend for the airline.

There must be hundreds of thousands of folks across the EU who currently wouldn't dream of flying Ryanair. Getting them to reconsider (and abandon legacy carriers in the process), could prove a real boon for O'Leary.

Rawr

Yamanoto wrote: »

If their efforts genuinely result in a more customer friendly experience, it could actually yield a real dividend for the airline.

There must be hundreds of thousands of folks across the EU who currently wouldn't dream of flying Ryanair. Getting them to reconsider (and abandon legacy carriers in the process), could prove a real boon for O'Leary.

Certainly agree with this. In the past I had been somewhat a fan of Ryanair, but as time passed certain behaviors or the airline did put me off using it.

If they corrected a few things, I would certainly reconsider using them again.
For example:

1) Redefining the baggage allowance
The strict one bag per passenger rule doesn't always take into account the size/weight of the bags. For example a passenger with one large (within allowed dimensions) bag would be admitted, however another passenger with 2 much smaller bags or lesser combined weight/dimensions would be stopped on account of having one bag too many.

I was once stopped for this reason. My usual pre-flight custom is to put any duty free purchases I have made into my main carry bag, and then retain the small plastic bag to store my flight 'supplies'. I do this to allow myself to sit quickly on boarding, and save me the need to get up to the overhead bins to fetch anything. This is done for my own convenience but also out of consideration of other passengers. The time I was stopped, I had one carry-bag and one see-though plastic bag containing one book and a small bottle of cola. I was stopped none the less, as I had 2 bags.

Practically speaking I understand the challenge here. A one-per-passenger rule is easier to enforce. I might instead recommend a 2-items with combined weight of XX kg rule. Check-in staff can then use their own judgement on what appears to be against the rule. If someone tries to bring more than their allowance (which is bound to happen), weighing the 2 bags would allow them a justifiable reason to reject the baggage and/or request additional fees.

2) Internal Decoration: Not really a deal breaker/maker for me, but the stark yellow/blue interior of the current fleet is a little of a shock to the senses. I would rather they opt for a more neutral colour scheme, which would help make the experience a little more calming.

3) Reconfigure / Redesign the seating: I hadn't noticed this to be a problem until I got a chance to compare Ryanair to another low-fares 747-800 operator about a year ago. I took a 'Norwegian' flight from Oslo to Gatwick, and their 747 was fitted with the standard stock Boeing seating. The flight was of normal comfort. On the return leg, I had booked Ryanair. The flight was slightly shorter, but about half way in it began to become quite painful to the sitting there. I've now noted this on previous Ryanair flights as well.

Although I get that they want to prevent people from reclining their seats for various reasons, the rigid design of the chair makes for an uncomfortable ride. I never recline the chair anyway, but if they could adopt a chair similar to other 747s and then somehow fix it into position, I feel that this would improve comfort immensely. (That all said, it could be down to leg room).

4) Assigned seating: Ryanair could probably introduce this with little cost. By far, the my most hated trait of Ryanair is the 'free-seating' system they employ. Although I know they now have limited assigned seating, I believe that plane-wide assignments would help a lot. Mostly, to prevent the panic-queueing and general rush to the plane that accompanies the typical boarding of a Ryanair flight. Having a per-assigned seat means that you do not need to think about when you need to board. Your seat is already chosen and you will get that seat regardless of when you enter the aircraft. I have boarded other low-cost and legacy airlines and have witnessed boarding to happen roughly as fast as a typical Ryanair boarding. The typical bad behavior of passengers blocking the walk-way tends to hold things up, but this appears to be true of all airlines.

The pre-assignment of seats would remove a generally unnecessary level of stress from the process, and would attract me back to the airline.

5) Ryanair.com : I already know that this is about to be fixed, but the website needs to work a little more like a professional airline website, and little less like a little less the a Web-Design thesis project with adverts slapped all over it. The Re-Captcha they used has been the single worst example of the security feature I have ever seen. Un-readable to the human eye, I once had to re-load 15 times before I found a phrase I could actually read. Captchas are sometimes a necessary evil, but they need to also be usable. The amount of things you need to say 'No Thanks' to also needs to be reduced or removed all together.

If they address some or all of the above, there is a good chance that I would fly with them again.

clumsyklutz

A very well laid out argument Rawr, and I have to agree with you about the leg room issue, now as I am only just above 5 feet, it's not really an issue for me, but I have seen my 6ft 3 father squeeze into one of their seats and his knees always kill him afterwards.

Though I would say that this is something that is never going to be fixed, as more leg room means less seats, an abominable thought for MOL!

I am also in favour of assigned seating, people get vicious! I was recently on a flight, whereby because we were with a disabled passenger we were assigned seats - saved so much time and energy.

All in all, I still fly Ryanair, they always come up cheapest and at the end of the day, that's my main goal.

Fred Swanson

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mfceiling

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Would this be the issue if they made everyone board in a certain order...

Say that the back 8 rows go on first.

After 3 mins then the next 8 rows go on, and so on.

People down the back are sitting down, then the back/middle are down, then the middle, middle/front and finally front.

Would it work? I don't know tbh.

barnabybear

mfceiling wrote: »

Would this be the issue if they made everyone board in a certain order...

Say that the back 8 rows go on first.

After 3 mins then the next 8 rows go on, and so on.

People down the back are sitting down, then the back/middle are down, then the middle, middle/front and finally front.

Would it work? I don't know tbh.

There are countless physicists researching this very problem. For example, see this.

whizbang

Thats where the one bag rule wins also. Personally i agree with it.

Lapin

Is it not time for Ryanair to have its own megathread?

ardmacha

before one gets the seat every attempt to get money with hand luggage, as in too heavy, wrong size, wrong shape, etc.

This is not just acting the maggot. There is only so much space on the plane for hand luggage and every oversized bag means that someone else cannot find a space.

ProudDUB

Ryanair's policy regarding hand luggage and the size, weight and shape of it is very well known & very well publicized. I'm not crazy about it, but it's a bit much to say that they are trying to get money from customers for it at every turn, or catch them by surprise over it. If people don't know about the regulations well in advance, they are living under a rock.

Over sized, very heavy bags lead to heavier planes, which leads to their needing more fuel to get from A to B, which jacks up the running costs, which jacks up the price of tickets. Again, I don't like the restrictions, but if they mean that I am able to fly from one country to another for 19.99, it is something that I am willing (sometimes) to put up with.

Ponster

Lapin wrote: »

Is it not time for Ryanair to have its own megathread?

Perhaps. Time to get into a Mod huddle.

Ponster

Threads Merged

bbsrs

Rawr wrote: »

3) Reconfigure / Redesign the seating: I hadn't noticed this to be a problem until I got a chance to compare Ryanair to another low-fares 747-800 operator about a year ago. I took a 'Norwegian' flight from Oslo to Gatwick, and their 747 was fitted with the standard stock Boeing seating. The flight was of normal comfort. On the return leg, I had booked Ryanair. The flight was slightly shorter, but about half way in it began to become quite painful to the sitting there. I've now noted this on previous Ryanair flights as well.

Although I get that they want to prevent people from reclining their seats for various reasons, the rigid design of the chair makes for an uncomfortable ride. I never recline the chair anyway, but if they could adopt a chair similar to other 747s and then somehow fix it into position, I feel that this would improve comfort immensely. (That all said, it could be down to leg room).

737-800's

grimm2005

Another change coming in February is fully allocated seating on all flights:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/ryanair-predicts-full-year-profit-drop-on-increased-competition.html

The company said today it will offer fully allocated seating from February, a further departure from its no-frills service.

I completely welcome this as I find one of the most annoying things about ryanair flights is the huddle a good 30mins or so before boarding to get a decent spot.

ProudDUB

Am surprised at this myself. They can kiss good bye their on time departures if they go with this. One of the biggest delays in flights taking off on time is allocated seating. People inch down the aisles, slowing down once they get within 5 aisles of their row, then all the ballyhoo with finding their precise row/seat. Then there is the figuring out who sits where, and what row is what as you can often only determine which row is which, if you are standing directly in front of the number. Then there is the fun with people being in the wrong seats and having to move. There is always that.

I like Ryanairs model of sitting any where. It's usually a 90 minute flight on bog standard planes. Aren't all the seats the same really? It's not like you are on a 7 hour flight across the Atlantic and you risk getting stuck in the middle of a 5 seat row.