RyanAir Business Plan: Low Fares, Soaring Fees
Ireland's discount airline RyanAir wants to be known as the "Tesco of the skies." (Think "flying Walmart.") The metaphor would apply beautifully if Tesco also charges you a 25 cent unpeeling fee on a 35-cent banana. In the last few years, RyanAir's "ancillary" revenue, or money raked in from fees, has reached £548 million ($914 million USD).
The latest figures were compiled by researchers at Idea-Works, whose spokesman Jay Sorensen said: 'Where I have disagreements with carriers is where the additional fee, such as a charge for booking online, is not optional.
'These fees are really part of the fare. It is disingenuous to pretend they are anything else.'
Oh, yeah, and baggage fees are going up at the beginning of October. But that's the least of your problems if you gamble all your possessions away while on board.
Ryanair rakes in £548m a year from 'stealth costs' [Daily Mail]
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Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching our destination. Please prepare your debit or credit cards for the Safe Landing Fee, which the flight attendants will be coming to collect.
For those choosing to opt out of this fee, please take a moment to collect your personal items from the overhead compartment and form a line near the trap door at the back of the airplane.
Thank you and, as always, thank you for choosing Ryanair as your airline today. Have the best day!
But if I pay 5 bucks for A, then 5 bucks for B, and later 4 bucks for C and 8 bucks for D after that, it's less expensive than if I just paid $20 for A-D at the same time up front, right?
@jkinatl2: Don't forget the trap door opening fee, the loss of air pressure due to opening said trap door fee, and the interrupting passengers with your screams while you fall fee. There's also a additional fee to be dropped out of the trap door with a parachute. Opting out of being dropped without a parachute incurs another fee.
This reminds me of the scene in Ocean's 13 in which we are introduced to Yen, who is pretending to be Mr. Wang. Linus (as Lenny Pepperidge) tells Sponder, "Let me put it to you this way: Try building something taller than three stories in the Tiangjin province, and see if his name turns up on your database then."
Does RyanAir own the airspace around its planes, and therefore, everyone must pay an entrance fee or tariff to be on board?
@pecan 3.14159265: That scene must have happened after I hit the stop button on the DVD player and declared "I don't give a shit how this turns out."
@HiPwr: Agreed, my tendancy is to watch even bad movies to the end to get the intellectual satisfaction of knowing what happend. O-13 was one of those movies I could care less.
Tesco is a little upscale to be compared to RyanAir. Technically, ASDA is the equivalent to Walmart (it is actually now owned by them). However, I would be more comfortable comparing RyanAir to dumpster diving behind Lidl. Sure the food is cheap but, ewww.
Of, course, they have every right to operate this way and they are taking full advantage of the continuing trend of people only paying attention to the "face price" and not the true price or the actual value.
My problem is that it makes it that much more difficult to meaningfully compare the total cost to fly me and my stuff from Point A to Point B. I'm hoping a travel aggregation site could set up a fee calculator where you check boxes/populate a pulldown (traveling with luggage? How many pieces? Paper ticket or printed? etc.) to calculate the total cost.
Well, complain all you want, they're ferrying a lot of people on their planes.
@torgonius: Uh, I think $22 is more expensive than $20, but that misses the point. I don't care what Ryan charges but I think it's misleading and bordering on fraud not to disclose all these fees as part of the cost of buying and using a ticket. I might still pay the fully bundled cost for the ticket, but I'd have a real means of comparison with the non-discount airlines.
When Irish eyes are smiling....
@SiDFresh: Yep. even with all the fees, it's still cheaper than even EasyJet. I flew from bristol to dublin on ryan air for $40/person in total (after baggage fees, taxes, etc, etc). I couldn't find any other fares that came close.
If all you're looking for is a bus with wings, then RyanAir is the way to go even after the various fees.
@Shoelace: It might be worth it to escape the stale BO-scented air on the plane (note: just came back from cross-country flight, yes, it did smell like BO and not mine, either).
@LadySiren: OMG, edit button PLEASE. It should've said it'd be worth it if you get fresh oxygen.../sigh. Sorry, it's Friday and my brain is already in Margaritaville.
I flew Ryan Air from Gatwick to Dublin, just for a day trip, no carry on (besides my wallet and passport) or checked bags. Went to the Guinness factory, got quite inebriated, and flew back. It was great for that, and cost roughly $30 US all in. But, if I were traveling somewhere for more then just a day or two I'd seriously consider one of Europe's other budget airlines that isn't quite so fee happy.
@egoods: We flew Ryanair from Dublin to Memmingen, Germany and short of them hawking lottery tickets, it went well. We checked one bag outbound, and two (one per person) on the way back. I believe our total cost (for two people) worked out to be 120 Euro (around $170).
Considering that flights from Madison, WI to Denver (a pretty comparable trip) cost $200+ per person without getting seriously lucky, I had no issue paying the baggage fees.
Pretty soon they'll be charging passengers by the pound.
Am I the only one who sees NO problem with this practice from a consumer fairness point of view? As long as none of the fees are for things that are required to get you to your destination, I prefer to see this as a business giving the consumer the option to decline unnecessary services and save some money, rather than an attempt to bilk customers for extras. It's just like those Southwest ads that irk me - no, Southwest doesn't charge a fee for baggage, they just charge more for the flight up front (at least in the markets where I fly). Isn't charging the people who actually use the service fairer than charging those who do as well as those who don't?
@JWBrockman: That's generally the take I have on it. As long as the charges are clear and aren't a necessity to fly, I don't mind the fees. It gives the consumer the option to not pay for an unnecessary service and shifts the cost burden to the people that actually use the given service.
Take baggage for example, if I don't have any baggage to check, why should I pay for it? I'm essentially paying for part of the cost to move another person's baggage.
@Vandelay Import Export: in a way, this is something I'd like to see . You pay a base fee for your seat and up to a certain amount of total weight. You and all your stuff get on a big scale and it records the total weight, anything over the base weight is charge $x/pound.
Of course, it's not very fair to large people, but it's fair in terms of charging people relative to the cost of transporting the given individual.
@JWBrockman: I don't mind this, but I wish there were an easier way to compare the full cost of transporting me and my stuff on the "full-service" airlines v. the base price+ extras airlines, that would help me make an informed decision.
Aside from an argument of deceptive pricing that really misses the target, shouldn't RyanAir be the consumer's airline? You pay for what you use. You save tons of cash as compared to other airlines, allowing "the masses" the power to travel in ways they had not had access before. If you don't want to fly them, you can easily fly a different airline since it's not like they're in fortress hubs where they control everything. Seems like a win for me if you're willing to accept the cattle-car atmosphere in the name of savings!
Is this the saem RyanAir that holds the Government Contract for Moving Soldiers to and from Iraq and Afghanistan Several Flights Daily?
I wonder if our taxpayer dollars pays this fee now as well?
@bonzombiekitty: Do you mean things like paying to check in? How about to buy the ticket in the first place?
It wouldn't be so bad if the service wasn't so horrible. I last flew them about 3 years ago and swore that it was the last time (and it has been).
Just imagine cattle trying to get out of a gate, it's like that as people wait in line to board and un-board. There's no seating numbers so it's everyone for himself. It's then madness on the flight as well because the stewards are ill paid and hardly give a damm about you. They just figure that you're too poor to fly BA or Virgin.
Oxygen usage fee?