[CityRiskBoy]

Its Interesting reading all of these Haha…..Clearly Easyjet wins hands down!

[StewartKidd1]

As one of the few people who appear to use Ryanair on a regular (if infrequent) basis – as well as Easyjet on a more regular basis I wouldn’t want to dispute the generally correct assertions re Ryanair’s predatory pricing but if I want to fly to Bremen with as little hassle as possible then Ryanair is my only choice.

The same is true for a number of locations I have to fly to. Given that unlike the majority of this Forum I only use LHR when there is no alternative and that STN is less than 40 minutes away, I can’t afford to be as choosy about rejecting an airline which offers (including seasonal routes) more than 90 destinations including quite hard to get to places like Graz, Plovdiv, Brno, Brindisi and Wroclaw. Yes the seats are uncomfortable, yes the on-time fanfare is irritating. Yes, O’Leary is to customer care what Herod was to play schools BUT, his prices, if you chose carefully are ludicrously low and his flights mostly on time – and he flies where I have to. I’d love to see more services from STN from ‘mainstream’ carriers but it ain’t gonna happen.

[AnthonyDunn]

The public’s schizophrenic attitude to Flyanscare. On the one hand, people vote with their feet, on the other:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9756624/Ryanair-voted-worst-short-haul-airline.html

[grahamwilkinson1]

GrahamW1
Living in Twickenham BA flights are almost the same price as as LCCs because of the travel costs to Gatwick or Luton and extras for early boarding etc. Travelled easyjet several times and OK. Would never do Ryanair on principle. Such an odious little man.

[Geoffram]

I fly quite a lot between Barcelona and the UK, so i have BA, Easyjet and Ryanair to compare. There is no doubt BA still behaves the way airlines used to: near-city airports, seat allocation before the flight, airbridges that take you right to the plane with the minimum of stairs to climb, a check-in crew that (at least in the UK) are mostly connected with BA and, once you get on board, a clean plane with a crew that look like they have flown quite a lot and are experienced and behave like a team. More than anything, you feel the hand of BA all through he flight. At the other end of the scale is Ryanair. Granted, you can now book actual seats, but don’t think if you leave it late to board that you’ll have space for your hand baggage in the overhead locker: you may end up having to put it in the hold and wait for it at the other end. Because the boarding procedure is outsourced to local agents, it is very haphazard. For example, when I used to book Priority Boarding, we were taken to the front entrance of the plane, while other passengers were free to use the rear entrance and frequently boarded before us. To try and keep to the 25-minute turnaround of planes (more of that later), Ryanair passengers are frequently taken out to the tarmac in all weathers, often having to wait at the foot of the stairs while the incoming passengers disembark. And, immediately you get on board a Ryanair plane, you get the impression the crew has been very hassled to achieve such a tight turnaround. You normally get either a nod or a cowl as welcome… if you’re lucky. And they live their lives out in the open, because there’s no separate galley area for them. I usually sit in the first row and can see how much of a struggle it is sometimes for the Purser (or whatever they call their Senior steward) to get the rest of their cosmopolitan crew to understand their instructions,a crew that quite clearly doesn’t seem know the meaning of working as a team. Either that, or they’ve all just started flying and don’t seem to know what’s expected of them.
Easyjet seems to fall between these two. I don’t want to seem crass, but their crews, who all do seem to come from the same country (usually the UK), do seem to relate to each other and their passengers. But then my experience on Easyjet’s punctuality recently has been very disappointing.
And, whatever you say about Ryanair, I have never ever been late on a flight apart from when airports have been closed through bad weather. My own view is that flying Ryanair is the least pleasant experience of all three, but, my advice is to spend the money on securing a reserved seat, and as a previous contributor said, ‘buy your food beforehand and don’t try to interact with any of the crew’. Good advice!

[FormerlyDoS]

Geoffram

Your post may be very interesting, but I am not going to try to read it without the separation of paragraphs.

It would be much appreciated if you would edit it.

[FormerlyDoS]

@Anthony Dunn

FR has it’s niche in the market, for people prepared to accept the way the company does things.

It just so happens that that niche makes it a much larger airline than BA, VS, etc etc 😉

[Geoffram]

DoS, my post does actually have three paragraphs in it. But if spacing is going to deter you from reading what I’ve said, please don’t strain your eyes doing so.

[AMcWhirter]

Geoffram

You’ll soon have two more carriers to choose from. Vueling and Norwegian will be starting BCN-LGW services in the spring.

[Geoffram]

That’s brilliant news, from the fares point of view, LondonCity. Although we fly to BCN, our nearest airport is actually Gerona, which made the mistake of relying on Ryanair for much of its business and only last year expanded to three times its size only to find that, because of a dispute with the Catalunyan government, Ryanair pulled out nearly all of its flights. That’s the other thing about Ryanair: they are ruthless.
Although the actual dispute was ‘resolved’, things have never been the same since. The airport is a sad shadow of its former self; you wouldn’t know of any airline who might be remotely interested in flying to GRO, would you? Trouble is: it’s 60 miles from downtown Barcelona…

[AllOverTheGaff]

Living in Scotland, I’ve now flown with Easyjet over a couple of hundred times, in fact I’m a card-carrying Easyjet + holder….don’t know if I can say that I am a proud card-carrier, but one nonetheless.

Great things about Easyjet:
– On time very often
– Good fares
– Normally young friendly crew
– Young fleet of aircraft
– They don’t fly to Heathrow, the UK’s most dire airport (IMO)
– Reasonable selection of food & drinks (albeit expensive)
– Very little hidden charges, they make most hits on your plastic palatable
– Some great routes from Scotland direct negating the need for me to connect and spend an entire day traveling.

Some not so great things about Easyjet:
– The scrum whenever boarding is called – even with Speedy-Boarding
– The eye-watering cost of a bacon sandwich & coffee on a morning flight
– Overhead stowage space is gone almost instantly – get on early!

I’ve flown Ryanair twice and hated it both times, won’t fly with him again on principle so can’t really comment but note that their business practices leave a lot to be desired.

I have huge admiration for how Easyjet do their business and have for many years, I started using them back in the olden days when they first flew into the shed that was Luton, and back in those days they saved me thousands and thousands against flying with BA from Edinburgh – they’ve changed how we *or at least I* travel, so I’m a fan!

Rgds.
AOTG.

[Tom Otley]

There has been occasional mention of these incidents (or non-incidents?) on the forum, so just to update…

Sunday Times today

An article (headlined “Ryanair accused of 1,201 safety violations”, Travel, September 23, 2012) stated that, according to a leaked report from the Spanish air safety agency (AESA), Ryanair planes broke safety rules 1,201 times in Spanish airspace in the first six months of 2012. We now accept that this was incorrect; there was no such report and Ryanair did not commit 1,201 breaches of safety rules.

In the same article we also reported three emergency landings that arose due to bad weather diversions from Madrid to Valencia on July 26, 2012. The article described these flights as having insufficient fuel to remain in holding patterns and reported claims that Ryanair was routinely abusing the mayday protocol to jump landing queues. We accept that all these allegations were untrue and apologise to Ryanair for the damage caused by this article.

We accept the Irish Aviation Authority’s assurance that Ryanair’s safety is “on a par with the safest airlines in Europe”. We have agreed to pay Ryanair substantial damages, which at the company’s request will be paid to the charity The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation.

[FormerlyDoS]

Geoffram

I suggest a handle change to ‘Monolithic’ 😉

[TominScotland]

Thanks for this posting, BT. While Ryanair does offer a very different experience from some other airlines and is not to everyone’s taste (certainly not mine, all the time, I must say!!), I think some of the chatter on this Forum has been fueled by an unfortunate level of ignorance, especially about safety. I trust that the The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation have benefited from a significant injection of additional funds!!

Whatever you think of Ryan Air (as some BT contributors persist in calling them), they do serve a very useful purpose and offer an efficient, on-time service to places to which most other airlines do not fly. At the end of the day, we all benefit from LCCs as they do drive down the fares of every traditional airline. This is true in Europe but also in the US and, increasingly, in Asia.

May I suggest that this somewhat fatuous post is now closed and is replaced by one along the lines of “Caviar vs Fishpaste….what would you choose?”

[FormerlyDoS]

Tom

Very much agree with your post. FR are not my favourite, either, although I do sometimes have to use the company.

Ryanair did not get to be the largest airline in Europe by flouting safety regs (there is another debate to be had over some of the regs, such as annual hours, but that is a regulator issue, not airline.)

The only hull loss that FR sustained was handled very well and all walked away safely, at Ciampino, after a catastrophic multiple bird strike on short final.

I think the new debate should be lobster sticks v crab sticks 🙂

[Author]

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