Bob24 wrote: » Supply and demand is what I am talking about. I don't think customers have any entitlement but they get to choose not to use the service if they are not happy. I definitely think they do care about their image it if means losing profit (MOL is more than smart enough to care). Remember 3 or 4 years ago: MOL himself openly said the company was losing business because it was unnecessarily pissing-off custumers and implemented many changes accordingly. Since then profits have gone to the roof. To me, if they are indeed slitting out passengers who are on the same booking on purpose, it does classify as "unnecessarily pissing-off custumers".
irishman86 wrote: » Supply and demand works different to how you think. If 10 people want a flight with only 6 seats then the company uses that to implement ways to make more money, in this case its get fees from people wishing to select there seats together. Thats how it works the supply curve slopes up for this very reason MOL knows very well that some will rabble but in the end will still board his planes when he pretty much controls the short euro flights with his prices
irelandrover wrote: » just compare the cost of paying for a seat + the price of a flight to the competitor. THis really isnt something to be annoyed about
Fred Swanson wrote: » This post has been deleted.
grogi wrote: » Ryanair is abusing its dominant position in short euro flights in order to extort additional money. The airline knows that majority of routes it operates it has no competition and even if competition comes in, they can afford the dump the prices on particular routes. People will use them regardless the shenanigans they come up with. It is not free market. Cost of entry is far to big.
miamee wrote: » Allocating a seat is not really a service - you've already paid for a seat by booking the flight. It doesn't cost them any more or less to give you seats together as opposed to seats apart. In fact they have now invested time/resources into changing the process they had from seating together to deliberately separating parties travelling together. While sitting apart from your travelling buddy whoever it may be is really not that big of a deal, the fact that Ryanair have gone out of their way to make it so for all passengers rankles and is a backwards step in their more recent efforts to keep customers happy in my opinion. I'll certainly be checking other options in future; naturally if Ryanair are still miles cheaper, I'll probably put up with it (and they know it)
Bob24 wrote: » Nope, you are forgetting one aspect of it: when the product/service your are selling is not a necessity and/or is subject competition, demand for it is not guaranteed and can drop depending on how customers feel about your product/service. In the case of an airline, it could be customers deciding not to fly this time because they had a bad experience before which partly made them decide to spend their next holiday in Ireland, or flying with a competing airline which covers the same route. So to go back to the exemple you give, if today there are 10 customers for 6 seats great you'll be able to have them overbid each other and sell the tickets to whichever ones are offering the highest amount - hence you will increase your profit. But if you piss-off many customers who then tend to avoid flying with you, in a few months time demand on the same route could drop to lets say to 6 customers for the 6 seats you are still offering: you will then have to sell tickets for less money and will make less profit because you have reduced demand for your service but supply is still the same. Purely from a profit's perspective, the question is: how many customers are these marketing gimmicks driving away and what is the negative impact on the average selling price of a ticket and the total number of tickets sold. If that impact is larger than the money the marketing gimmick is bringing in, it becomes counter-productive. And as I said the more things like this you add, the larger the negative halo becomes and the more the individual impact for each of them becomes negative.
Bob24 wrote: » Is that very last minute check-in? Doing in on purpose even if neighbouring seats are available would really be going a step too far.
posy2010 wrote: » Just so you know if you go into print boarding passes it will say oh you are sitting miles from each other, want to change? I said yes to see and the seat next to my pre allocated one was empty so only had to pay a fiver for the 1 seat. May be worth a go day before flight!
tina1040 wrote: » I like the restaurant example!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
irishman86 wrote: » You are thinking in a stone age way my friend, to many people travel is as much a necessity as anything not food/shelter/clothing these days. The aul financial basket has changed since the 80s Lets put it this way, all these people in here complaining 99% are still going to fly Ryanair rather than pay 100 euros more with someone else. Your supply and demand is incorrect on the basis that Ryanair dont really have a rival in the cheap flights section and your view that demand is limited Its the same as Microsoft it doesnt matter what they do because well they own 80% of the market
cruhoortwunk wrote: » They have undone a lot of the recent good work here. I wouldn't be surprised if they change it back, but not until after a bumper summer of add-on charges.
daisy123 wrote: » What is people's obsession with sitting together???? I really don't understand it at all! They are short flights. If it means that much, just pay the price, or fly with a different airline. C'mon folks, be a bit independent here!
degsie wrote: » Not an obsession, just social norm. If you go to a restaurant do you sit together? Or on a ferry? Or when travelling in the same car?
cruhoortwunk wrote: » Ryanair are rarely much cheaper than the competition these days. I'll be happy enough to pay the ?20 or ?30 extra for Aer Lingus
Bob24 wrote: » Again, from what I have read Michael O'Leray doesn't see it that way his line is more the one I described. Another interesting quote of his from an FT piece on top of the one I had provided before which was going the same direction:"If I had known that being nicer to our customers was going to result in higher load factors [a measure of how full its aircraft are], I would have been nicer years ago,? Mr O?Leary said. ?No one is going to be nicer to our customers now than me." What he is saying here is pretty much the same I was explaining: if you are nicer to your customers you get more of them, if you have more customers yours planes are fuller, and if your planes are fuller you make more money both because you are selling more tickets and because due to increased demand and constrain on supply the average ticket price is increasing. When you say "all these people in here complaining 99% are still going to fly Ryanair rather than pay 100 euros more with someone else" I think you are making 2 mistakes: 1. It is not that frequent for Ryanair to undercut Aer Lingus by 100 euros for the same route. 2. You are partially right in that many people will complain but still use Ryanair (though I doubt you would be right in thinking 99% of those who complain will not reduce their use of Ryanair). But what about the customers who won't complain because they have better things to do and will just move on to another airline which doesn't give them any crap? i.e. those slightly more premium customers who tend to drive Ryanair's profit because while they like good value bottom low prices are not their top concern if it starts hurting their customer experience too much. And Microsoft was in trouble before Satya Nadella can into the picture and put the focus on customer relationship and online services/inovation: they had actually become complacent with the way they were treating their customers due to their market dominance and were at best wasting their growth potential and at worst declining. If you look at the share price since the 2000s it reflects that view from investors with a decline/stagnation in the 2000s before soaring after Nadella's policy changes came into action.
