Pretty much everyone who’s spent any amount of time in Europe has experienced the wonder of Ryanair. If you don’t know much about Ryanair, I have a short personal anecdote that should tell you everything you need to know.
My family and I were a Ryanair flight from Manchester to Dublin a few years ago. When the flight attendants gave the safety presentation, you could see that the safety jackets had “Aer Lingus” printed on and crossed out in permanent marker. “Ryanair” was scribbled on top of this. Cutting corners at every opportunity!
So in honor of the airline everybody loves to hate, here are my top five reasons why I hate Ryanair:
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. Source: The Telegraph
5. Mid-flight ads. No, I really do not want to buy a lottery ticket at 30,000 feet. No, I won’t want to in five minutes either. Or in twenty. I don’t want a €10 sandwich either. Stop playing those annoying announcements so I can sleep. (Other airlines have unfortunately adopted this genius idea).
4. They intentionally mislead you about the prices. The flights are advertised at 99p. Oh, but you’ll have to pay the taxes and ‘fees’. And then a ‘convenience fee’ for buying online (this also applies if you buy the ticket at the airport). Want to pay with credit or debit card? That’ll be €16 please! My last €17 flight ended up costing nearly €90 by the time I’d purchased it.
Yes, “free”…Source: Nick Burcher
Source: Air Observer
2. Their generally horrible approach to squeezing every last penny out of you. See #4 for a personal example. And remember that time they tried to charge for using the bathroom mid-flight? Then they tried to take the toilets out entirely. And THEN they tried to get rid of seats to have ‘standing airplanes’. Anything to cut costs!
Source: WhichBudget
1. Ohhh, I can’t pretend anymore – I don’t actually hate Ryanair . It’s impossible when their flights are so so so cheap, despite #5-2. I would love to be all high-minded and not support their terrible, disgusting business practices, but I just can’t when it’s so inexpensive. I’ll put up with a lot for some cheap travel. And I secretly love the silly landing announcement they play. Sorry guys!
As much as I love-hate Ryanair, the alternatives are generally more expensive, and it does let you travel quite cheaply. But there are definitely lots of alternatives to Ryanair: Easy Jet, Wizz Air, Flybe, and Vueling are some decent ones. Vueling is my favorite.
Keep in mind that Ryanair isn’t always the cheapest airline to fly on – here’s a side-by-side comparison table that proves it. Don’t bother using Ryanair if you have any luggage you need to check, as the fees are ridiculous.Also read this article by the Independent: “Just how cheap are those no-frills flights once the hidden extras are taken on board?”
Source: Simpliflying
If you want to learn more about Ryanair, check out the documentary“Why Hate Ryanair” on YouTube. It does a pretty thorough job of objectively examining both sides of the Ryanair debate.
For something more fun, somebody actually made a whole website devoted to hating Ryanair (this post is especially hilarious).
Anyone else have any Ryanair stories? Everyone traveling in Europe seems to have one!
Besos!
-Jess
Oh Ryan Air… I try to fly Easyjet when I can. I’m actually taking Ryan Air tomorrow, flying out of Madrid and landing at Marseille for a 3 week vacation in France for my family.
And because of these tax fees enacted in the Community of Madrid, Ryan Air is eliminating many of its routes flying out of Madrid and Barcelona to save money. I have no problem with this since I hate Ryan Air too! They’re okay for a one hour or two hour flight here and there. Anything more than that and I will gladly buy a more expensive ticket to a different airline.
And for point number 3… my friends and I failed to realize the airport we were flying into in Germany was not in Frankfurt. In fact, it was located nowhere near Frankfurt… make that 2.5 hours way by bus. It was such a ridiculous experience because our flight left Madrid pretty late so by the time we arrived at “Frankfurt/Hahn” it was after midnight and we didn’t realize our mistake (the airport was in the middle of the German countryside). After buying the bus ticket, it took about 2.5 hours to get to downtown Frankfurt. To make matters worse, we also stopped at the actual Frankfurt airport on the way… talk about having your nose rubbed in it! We finally made it to the hostel at 3 AM only to have to check out at 10 AM in a few hours. It was so bad but now a few months later I think the whole thing was hilarious!!
Urgh, those taxes…I’m really not pleased about those, they’ll cramp my cheap travel style!
I cannot believe they have the nerve to call a city 2.5 hours away “Frankfurt.” That’s completely outrageous. And it’s even worse that you had to check out so soon afterwards. Still, Ryanair is so appalling that it’s almost impossible NOT to laugh about it afterwards.
Good luck on your Ryanair flight tomorrow, and have fun in France!
I never had any intention of using Ryanair and I definitely don’t have an intention to in the near future after reading this blog post. I love the harsh criticism. I would prefer to pay for a more expensive flight somewhere because I generally feel a holiday starts when you leave your house. Not saying I have ever been in Business or First Class. I just hope to in the future of travel. GOOD POST! 🙂
Yesss, Ryanair definitely has its downsides. If I wasn’t so cheap, I would choose other airlines as Ryanair is almost never a stress-free experience.
This is one of my favourite post reads of all time. Officially
Aww, thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
So true, I hate Ryanair!! But at the same time I love them. It’s (almost) always the cheapest flight you can find, and I rather spend 50€ on a Ryanairticket then 100€ for any other airline. Then I spend the 50€ I’ve saved on drinks to make me forget the horrible journey.
Hahaha so true! Still, €50 on drinking is potentially more fun…
I have a love/hate relationship with Ryanair too, as I often have to fly back to the UK.
You might like this Youtube video all the hazards of CHEAP FLIGHTS. Hilarious!!
Oh my gosh, that video was hilarious!! Thanks for posting it, I laughed so hard.
Grrrr, Ryan Air….
6. They allow you a pathetic 10kg hand luggage the size of a shoe-box thus enforcing people only going away for the weekend to pay £70 (each way) for a bag… grrrr….
7. ALWAYS land with a huge bump and if you have back problems, tough…
8. Their scratch cards are supposed to benefit Unicef yet all their cheap & tacky souvenirs (and goodness knows why anyone in their right mind would want one) are probably manufactured by cheap labour in “developing” countries and possibly supervised by gangs…
9. They arrive late at night and so exacerbate any problems getting from (e.g.) Stanstead to anywhere…
10. When you complain to them or contact their customer services, they may as well tell you where to go for the amount of help they are AND you pay for a premium rate line.! Better to ask your neighbour’s sister’s aunt-in-Australia’s pet wombat for help!
…off my soap box now!! I try to avoid this company as much as possible and in preference use Squeezy Jet. Absolutely hate them and they know what they can do with their prices 🙂
Agree with everything. I didn’t know their customer service was so appalling…though I can’t say it’s a surprise!
Easy Jet is MUCH nicer.
The best thing about the Madrid Ryanair was that was in Madrid, not some random suburb. Too bad …
I got to fly a real airline for our honeymoon, and it was so nice. I hope to never fly Ryanair again.
Haha what, you mean you don’t want to experience the uniquely stressful joy of flying Ryanair again? I can’t imagine why not 😉
Hope you and Mario had a great time on your honeymoon!
Oh Ryan air… I see someone shared the delightful other youtube video about how Ryanair is really not that cheap.
I prefer other airlines when I can but I haven’t reached the point of complete avoidance. I try my best though bc there not cheaper but often they’re the only airline that flies to where I want to go. Go figure. the bastards have a damn monopoly on the market…
I still can’t get over they charge you for paying online and using a credit card and when it’s cheaper to use a debit card, the debit card doesn’t count as s debit card, “oops sorry, your debit card counts as a credit card so we can charge you more.
Why thanks…
Grrr, that drives me absolutely crazy! I think it’s only the official Ryanair credit card that lets you avoid that fee (naturally).
I never used Ryanair. Although the prices made it look interesting, all the additional costs and the bad location of the airports always prevented me from using the airline.
However, i’m writing my thesis about negative emotions and hate towards Ryanair, here is the link of my survey: http://ieseg.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eMexzTvOEomAw5v
If you have negative emotions towards Ryanair, take the survey, it should take around 15 min and would help me a lot 😉
You know, it’s so cheap that I can’t complain too much! Even though it can be frustrating, the prices always make it worth it for me because they let me travel so much more.
And yes, I’d be happy to take your survey! I remember from my thesis how tough it can be to round up people to take one. 🙂
have you seen Rhod Gilbert’s take on ‘BryanAir’ – it;s hilarious too..
I think the only thing worse than RyanAir is EasyJet… I feel like they intentionally confuse you to end up costing you more. With my experience I couldn’t find a lot of information on their carry on regulations (which may be partially my fault for not doing more research – but come on, you travel, you have luggage, shouldn’t it be plainly listed?). I ended up paying 40 euro for an additional bag – didn’t help that the bag was fairly small and I probably could have rearranged my luggage and not needed it at all if I had the time.