Improvements at Ryanair

Mech1

bk

Stovepipe wrote: »

@ballooba, Ryanair's way of doing business originated in the USA in the Sixties so it's not news to Americans, at all. Herb Kelliher of Southwest coordinated what was already practise at several small airlines into one airline and when it was seen to work, he invited all-comers to copy him, which Michael O'Leary did (and he has stated this publicly several times).

Southwest however offers a much higher class of service then Ryanair. Southwest offers:

- Fully assigned seating which is free
- Normally board through air-bridges rather then steps like Ryanair.
- Free non-alcoholic beverages and pretzels/snacks
- Ability to book transfers, with luggage handled between transfers etc.
- Frequent flyer awards scheme
- wifi onboard and streaming TV and video on demand over wifi
- Nicely designed website and booking system, with non of the stupidity of the Ryanair website
- 2 free checked bags
- They allow two bags (laptop bag) for cabin luggage.

AerLingus is now far more like Southwest, then Ryanair is.

I see Ryanair heading more towards the Southwest/AerLingus model to attract more business travellers and to stave off competition from the likes of Easyjet, etc. which are also closer to Southwest model.

LoonyLovegood

I went to book a flight today on their site, I have to admit, it's so much nicer to book than before!

homerjay2005

CTYIgirl wrote: »

I went to book a flight today on their site, I have to admit, it's so much nicer to book than before!

nothing has changed yet apart from the captha verification is gone. still the s*it with car hire, bags, buses etc etc.

the site is closing for 6 hours later, hopefully all the crap i just mentioned is taken off.

LoonyLovegood

I know, but it's still so much nicer to not have that bloody captcha!

murphaph

homerjay2005 wrote: »

nothing has changed yet apart from the captha verification is gone. still the s*it with car hire, bags, buses etc etc.

the site is closing for 6 hours later, hopefully all the crap i just mentioned is taken off.

6 hours of downtime even in the wee small hours will cost Ryanair a fortune. Are you sure it's so long?

IngazZagni

murphaph wrote: »

6 hours of downtime even in the wee small hours will cost Ryanair a fortune. Are you sure it's so long?

It's down now until 4am. It's the booking engine that's down right now.

homerjay2005

site is not working properly. gives flights as 0 Eur but doesnt allow me to book anything.

Stinicker

The captcha is gone for me and they have this option box which calculates the fee if you pay by Credit Card or by Debit Card and a link to the baggage fee's table which means it is a hell of alot easier to navigate and no more jumping through hoops and having to go as far as "press pay" to figure out how much it will cost for everything all-in.

It was one of my pet peeves on Ryanair was that between the captcha and having to almost book the flight before you knew the exact cost.

So far so good, these are only minor differences but they make it much easier and more transparent.

RichieO

The website is cured ok but now it's knack-cured, been trying to get on it all morning....

Now, if only the seats were less like concrete slabs.....

Patrickheg

bk wrote: »

Southwest however offers a much higher class of service then Ryanair. Southwest offers:

- Fully assigned seating which is free
- Normally board through air-bridges rather then steps like Ryanair.
- Free non-alcoholic beverages and pretzels/snacks
- Ability to book transfers, with luggage handled between transfers etc.
- Frequent flyer awards scheme
- wifi onboard and streaming TV and video on demand over wifi
- Nicely designed website and booking system, with non of the stupidity of the Ryanair website
- 2 free checked bags
- They allow two bags (laptop bag) for cabin luggage.

AerLingus is now far more like Southwest, then Ryanair is.

I see Ryanair heading more towards the Southwest/AerLingus model to attract more business travellers and to stave off competition from the likes of Easyjet, etc. which are also closer to Southwest model.

Ryanair initially adopted southwests business model about 20 yrs ago when o'leary took over, since then ryanair have taken the original model and refined it by finding further cost efficiencies with the end result that both airlines have very different business models. neither of the airlines acknowledge that they have similar business models and haven't done so in many many years

Cosmo Kramer

Assigned seating for all passengers on the way, €5 to pick your seat or it will be picked for you. Question is, if you book multiple tickets for the same flight and don't pay the extra to pre-book seats, will they assign your group seats together or separate you around the airplane?

I actually didn't mind unassigned seating at all, it was survival of the fittest and it was usually the idiots who turned up late that didn't get to sit together and then moaned about it for the whole flight, vowing never to fly Ryanair again (until the next time they got a cheap ticket). Now there's little incentive for these types to hurry to the gate, so I expect a big drop in on time performance as a result of this.

bk

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Assigned seating for all passengers on the way, €5 to pick your seat or it will be picked for you. Question is, if you book multiple tickets for the same flight and don't pay the extra to pre-book seats, will they assign your group seats together or separate you around the airplane?

Really!!

I think this is actually bad news!

Firstly it will definitely increase boarding times. Random seating is actually faster boarding then most types of assigned seating.

Secondly I was almost always able to get an emergency exit seat, without booking under the current system.

whitebriar

I find paying extra to ensure I have the seat I want,makes for a more relaxing time at the airport.
This business of scramming to get to the head of a queue and sometimes standing for ages to keep your place in the queue is such a drudge.
So I'm delighted,Fr has joined the rest for this.

As for slower boarding,I'm sure Fr have done the maths on that one,they wouldn't be doing it if it was going to be affecting their on time record.

irish_goat

bk wrote: »

Southwest offers:

- Fully assigned seating which is free
- Normally board through air-bridges rather then steps like Ryanair.
- Free non-alcoholic beverages and pretzels/snacks
- Ability to book transfers, with luggage handled between transfers etc.
- Frequent flyer awards scheme
- wifi onboard and streaming TV and video on demand over wifi
- Nicely designed website and booking system, with non of the stupidity of the Ryanair website
- 2 free checked bags
- They allow two bags (laptop bag) for cabin luggage.

Most of those are not "free", they're included in the ticket price.

theteal

Excuse the source but this saddens me from a purely selfish slant. I quite enjoy being the last on the flight, getting a middle seat in the first few rows which thus enables me to get off very quickly upon landing. Getting an allocated seat on the belly of the plane may scupper/inconvenience my further travel plans :sadface:

bk

whitebriar wrote: »

I find paying extra to ensure I have the seat I want,makes for a more relaxing time at the airport.
This business of scramming to get to the head of a queue and sometimes standing for ages to keep your place in the queue is such a drudge.
So I'm delighted,Fr has joined the rest for this.

I never scrammed, instead the trick was to sit and wait until the end when all the other people have boarded and then stroll into the emergency seats.

apaynea

So I guess if customers wish to check in earlier than 24 hours before the flight then they will have to pay the 5 euro charge? Seems like they will make a lot from this as I would guess most of their customers check in well in advance of 24 hours. Basically forcing everyone to pay the charge.

LoonyLovegood

The way I take it is that if you don't pay the charge you get allocated a random seat.

wretcheddomain

CTYIgirl wrote: »

The way I take it is that if you don't pay the charge you get allocated a random seat.

When is this allocation made though? I mean if I print off my boarding pass 3 days before the flight, arrive at the boarding gate til the end, I assume that cabin crew just tell you on the way into the aircraft right?

tigershould

wretcheddomain wrote: »

When is this allocation made though? I mean if I print off my boarding pass 3 days before the flight, arrive at the boarding gate til the end, I assume that cabin crew just tell you on the way into the aircraft right?

Sounds like if you check in more than 24hrs in advance you have to pay €5. It's only free if you check in within 24hrs

highlydebased

tigershould wrote: »

Sounds like if you check in more than 24hrs in advance you have to pay €5. It's only free if you check in within 24hrs

If you want to select a seat you have to do it more than 24 hours before departure and its a fiver. If you checkin within 24 hours of the flight you cannot select a seat.

If you do not want to select a seat you can do it whenever you like and there is no charge.

There is some missing info as to what will happen people who checkin 2 weeks out say and print their boarding pass without paying for a seat selection- if random seat allocation only happens 24 hrs before the flight, what happens people who already have their boarding passes printed out?

LoonyLovegood

Probably at the gate? "CTYIgirl, you'll be in seat 10A."

Am I right in remembering that there's rules coming in involving passenger manifests saying that they have to have seat numbers of passengers, or am I imagining something?

tigershould

highlydebased wrote: »

If you do not want to select a seat you can do it whenever you like and there is no charge.

There is some missing info as to what will happen people who checkin 2 weeks out say and print their boarding pass without paying for a seat selection- if random seat allocation only happens 24 hrs before the flight, what happens people who already have their boarding passes printed out?

I can't see this working. If you can check in and not select a seat the boarding card won't have a seat number. I repeat if you check in more than 24hrs you will have to pay a fiver.

tankbarry

A better improvement would be getting bigger planes and doing transalantic. I know this is already another thread but it would be an " improvement"

murphaph

tigershould wrote: »

I can't see this working. If you can check in and not select a seat the boarding card won't have a seat number. I repeat if you check in more than 24hrs you will have to pay a fiver.

This is exactly how it works with Aer Lingus. I expect they'll just copy how they do it. It's 30 hours with Aer Lingus though.

Growler!!!

tigershould wrote: »

I can't see this working. If you can check in and not select a seat the boarding card won't have a seat number. I repeat if you check in more than 24hrs you will have to pay a fiver.

How about if you haven't prepaid a seat, the Gate agent hands you a piece of card with a seat number on it as you board. Simple.

wretcheddomain

They should really have clarified this by now.

Growler!!!

It's not due to come into effect until February 2014. Plenty of time to sort out the details

technocrat

MOL on Newsnight now getting a good ol grilling!