Ryanair Cancellations

[FarangRuMak]

Ryanair have cancelled 50 flights in the last 24 hours and plan similar cancellations in the near future.
People are left stranded away from home due to the abrupt cancellation of return flights.
The reason given has something to do with staff holidays but that sounds strange if not ominous to me.

[joe552]

The story here in Dublin is that they don't have enough pilots. Something like 140 have moved over to Norwegian Air. Whatever the truth is, it's a major blow for them. Still, if I was looking at a flight to Tenerife, if they came in cheaper that Aer Lingus, I'd book it.

[FarangRuMak]

I hate to see any budget airline failing.
Thanks to Virgin, Ryanair etc the travelling public were released from the grip of the national carriers.
The National big boys on the block did everything in their power to stop the budget carriers bringing us all to European cities at affordable prices.

[joe552]

I agree - you have to credit Ryanair for driving prices down in Europe. Although for flights to Tenerife, my usual option for my January birthday trip, Ryanair and Aer Lingus are always pretty close on price nowadays.

[Nirish guy]

EXACTLY Joe - Ryanair ( and Easyjet) both "CALL" themselves low cost carriers, but more and more more their pricing is on a par OR MORE than their competition and I do accept that they certainly were at the fore front of driving prices down AT THE START, but I'm not sure that still apples across the board any more.

Plus to compensate for their ( so called) lower prices they seem to believe that it's acceptable to treat their customers like absolute SHIT these days and we can all either like it or just fuck off ( which is almost an exact quote from Michael OLeary himself no less !!).

This week alone Easyjey cancelled a flight a london to Belfast flight on me with just 3 hours notice as they had "no plane", the cancellation was sent to me simply by email and when I was in the air flying back from Rome on another airline, then on finally getting to their desk to ask WTF they basically didn't give a fuck.

They then had TWO totally disinterested staff members sitting at on their so called "customer care" desk to deal with upwards of 150 disgruntled passengers that they'd just fucked over and basically their answer to me was " well there you go, it is what it is, we'll put you and your BF up in two SINGLE rooms only !?!! in some shitty cheap airport hotel / B&B of THEIR choice and they'd "maybe" get us on the 6,30am flight ( i.e that's a 4.30am start for us for them to "maybe" get us on the the morning flight - and we could take it or leave it - or yes we could certainly take yourselves off to another airport and see what we could catch from there or yeah we'll just refund your flight - FUCKING BIG DEAL !

Thanks to the EU they are now obliged to compensate 250 euros for each cancelled flight so that's something at least but it' s like pulling teeth getting that lawful claim out of them - my claim is already in and they've now said that they'll take at least 14 days to CONSIDER paying it and will look at my meal and train ticket bill that I'm also entitled to submit - which considering they DID cancel the flight and the law is clear is ridiculous as the compensation is designed to be almost instant and customers shouldn't be expected to be out of pocket for ANY period- they could of course simply refund to your card on cancelling your flight.

Likewise the whole Ryanair debacle ( which ABSOLUTELY is to do with their pilots leaving them in their droves as he's been treating them like shit for years now too).

That's another disgrace and they've fucked up SO many peoples travel plans without barely as much as a actual or real apology or certainly any no true remorse and even then are still refusing to book people onto other airlines flights to get them BACK from the locations that they've stranded them at in the first place etc and also are making it as difficult as humanly possible to claim the ENTITLED compensation or to even to speak to anyone from their airline as they simply closed down their phone lines and their on line chat help line which is absolutely disgraceful and people should remember this when next going to book with them!

The Governments should I feel really tighten up the penalties on them to ensure whilst they may offer "apparently" lower costs ( highly debatable now anyway once you add in their extra fees) that they ARE also obliged to ACTUALLY offer the service they advertise and not just able to cancel flights "on a whim" as both airlines do solely for commercial reasons and they just shouldn't be allowed too when it inconveniences SO many peoples plans.

The other option is of course that we all vote with our money and tell them to fuck off and so try to book elsewhere ( see Norwegian as the next up and coming guy here perhaps !) - but of course people won't as they all fall for Michael OLeary's "we're cheap as chips" sales patter every time, whether that actually be true or not - but just ask the people he's stranded this week was their not so "cheap" ticket worth it or not this week and there's your TRUE answer perhaps as to the likes of Ryanair and their types.

[FarangRuMak]

Looks like the budget carriers inevitably push the envelope more and more until a new monopoly is created.
New competitors on the block is the answer.
I see in the papers that the Norwegian airline are expanding their base in Dublin-Ryanair's backyard. And they're doing the same in other locations.

[joe552]

Come on NIrish, tell us what you really think!

I believe Norwegian are offering flights from Dublin to New York (well, somewhere in NY state) for under

[scottish-guy]

All of these companies who sell on cost - from Ryanair to Specsavers - have the same marketing philosophy, which is:

"As long as the customer thinks they're getting a bargain/something for nothing, you can treat them like absolute shit, and most of them will still come back. For every 10 who are smart enough not to come back there will be another 15 mugs along in a minute"

[joe552]

Sorry, my post should have included that my friend paid less than €200 for his trip to New York.

[Nirish guy]

Ha and I see Michael OLeary / Ryanair have just announced this evening that they're going to immediately recruit 120 new pilots in the next few weeks ( yeah good luck with that) - so that blows their lies about holiday roosters clean out the window and only yesterday he was telling the world that this had nothing to do with crew numbers. Then after this pilots politely rejecting his "bonus plan" to get him out of the shit (as he'd attached way too many terms and conditions to it) he then went on to say "hell being a pilot with them wasn't even THAT hard of a job anyway and once trained anyone could do it and he failed to see how any of them could be fatigued" - Ha, talk about how to win friends and influence people (not to mention totally piss off your already disgruntled staff) - I hope they actually bury him as he's one arrogant wee bastard.

[FarangRuMak]

Yes I heard his comments about the job of pilots not being that difficult.A very weird thing to say when you run a company full of planes flown by pilots.
When you say "wee" are you saying he has a small weenie?
If so how do YOU know?

[Nirish guy]

When you say "wee" are you saying he has a small weenie?

:-) I'm Irish, do you know that EVERYTHING is wee here - except our hearts and our cocks !!! Well, ok, the second one, maybe not so much and actually the first one, no, not even that - they were just WEE white lies :-)

[joe552]

I know this is of no real significance, but I used to work in a hotel his uncle owned. He used to stay occasionally. He was always polite and made very few demands. A good guest to have.

[gerefan2]

I'm rather hoping it's the beginning of the end of
Ryanair....they at second on my No Fly List following BA.

Alas the thick penny pinching public will still fly with them...

[joe552]

Ha, speak for yourself, NIrish. I'm not wee by any definition. It's only something I have to do at 4 in the morning!