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that is sweet. if i lived in the uk I would buy a flight
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@captainpicard:
FYI, they've got a fair number of options for travel in greater Europe. It's cheap, it's serious low-frills, but they're usually on time.
that is sweet. if i lived in the uk I would buy a flight
@captainpicard:
FYI, they've got a fair number of options for travel in greater Europe. It's cheap, it's serious low-frills, but they're usually on time.
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Damn. I mean...damn. That's ballsy.
@Tightlines:
Yeah. I admire it. I don't admire the way the blog comment was written though; it looks like it was written by a 12 year old.
If bloggers would really choose a different airline because its spokesperson called a blogger an idiot, then all of those bloggers are idiots for spending more money or inconveniencing themselves over something so trivial.
Resorting to personal attacks and suing negative reviewers is another way to convince people you have a crappy product.
@Sunny Yeung: I would also like to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of PR people who know how to write worth a damn. *Fact is,* the use of proper grammar has a nontrivial effect on your credibility.
One more company I'll never give my money to!
@DeloresPompeii: are you kidding? if I EVER have the opportunity to take a flight from RyanAir, I will!
What a great company. finally someone has the balls to stand up to idiot bloggers!
That video is a first for me.
when i woke up this morning i did not expect to watch another man play with his balls for four mins
Ryanair should not be calling anybody an idiot or lunatic, regardless.
However, the blogger should have retracted the story or put up a more accurate \"explanation\", considering his original claim was in fact totally bogus.
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@philmin:
CLARIFICATION: I did not claim to complete the booking process for a free flight. I found a bug that showed a 0.00 price listed beside flights. Orders could not go past the passenger details page. See the less than constructive comments left by Ryanair staff below.
That was there when I read his site shortly after the story went up.
Can I post a link here? I was following up on further reporting of the story. Its up to our own judgment of whether or not the blogger claimed to be able to purchase a free ticket. Realistically though, a bug that shows something weird on a site isnt a story, a bug that gives a free ticket is.
Apparently, blogger Roe made a very slight modification and added that note after this story blew up in Ireland.
@philmin: I don't see why you can't, man. If there's more to the story, I think we ought to know.
That said, I don't know why people insist on questioning what bloggers choose to write about. The guy is a web-designer, so I can see how this would be relevant to him, even if it doesn't seem particularly news-worthy to us. He's not writing for the NY Times after all, it's just his personal blog. ;)
@philmin: Just post the link in your comment. If it's a problem they'll delete it, but I'm certain they won't unless it becomes clear you suddenly decided to take up an extremely odd method of spamming. Don't leave us all in suspense like that! :P
But yeah, it seems like this was really a non-story to begin with. The author really should have at least tried to complete a sale before posting. Lesson learned, hopefully.
The two responses from Trans Air (were they from the same person?) seemed like they were posted by, to put it delicately, someone who also was not completely thinking things through.
I've totally heard of them before.
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Isn't RyanAir an Irish airline? You may have just ticked off an entire nation and ethnic group, Ben.
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@Hyman Decent: The country that nearly starved to death whilst being surrounded by fish-filled waters?
I think they'll be okay.
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Oh the mess you hath dug RyanAir. I see 2 more stories about you in the future: The first will be your public apology, and the second will be RyanAir going out of business. So sad.
@hi: Hardly they've been around for a long time, and they are cheap they couldn't care less what people think because they will stay busy.
I flew RyanAir from Gatwick to Dublin last February...check-in was literally a man with a paper list of passengers; it was like taking attendance at a school assembly. He filled out a boarding card with a pencil. They really mean \"no-frills\"! There were ads on the overhead bins, too! What an experience...I'm not surprised they have basically no customer service.
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@jodles: I flew RyanAir ages ago out of the world's tiniest airport in the ass end of nowhere in Ireland, and I had to get a ticket that day because of a series of unfortunate events that meant I had to get back to London ASAP. So I went to Tiny Airport and went to the info desk (only desk staffed) and asked the lady if anyone from Ryan Air was available. She said, \"One moment, I'll go get someone.\" Disappears into the back, and comes out wearing a green blazer at the Ryan Air desk, acting like she hadn't seen me 30 seconds ago.
I was like, \"THERE WAS TOTALLY A HOME IMPROVEMENT EPISODE WHERE THIS HAPPENED AND I WILL NEVER MOCK THAT SHOW AGAIN!\"
The whole experience went on in this vein. It wasn't BAD, exactly, just ... verrrrrrrry low-budget and bizarre. A slapstick comedy waiting to happen.
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@Eyebrows McGee: That is amazing and hilarious and would actually make me *more* likely to fly RyanAir.
They are dirt cheap, BTW, and while they're no-frills, most flights within Europe are so short that it really doesn't matter much. There are a few companies that compete (EasyJet and BMIBaby are two I've used in the past), but RyanAir's one of the best known.
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@Eyebrows McGee: Shame on you for laughing at what clearly is someone suffering from multiple personality disorder. Bad passenger, no lukewarm half-cup of soda for you!
@Eyebrows McGee: HAHA.. I remember that. The one with that airport guy who was also the car rental guy. I forgot all about that, but that actor cracks me up.
Despite Ryanair reacting like this, and people hating flights with them, I always fly them when I travel to Europe. Cross-Europe flights can be as cheap as US$10. Try finding ANY flight in the US for $10.
@LetMeGetTheManager: I was a big fan on Ryanair when I was able to use it. Flew from London to Dublin, Verona, and perhaps also Prague (maybe that was EasyJet) and never more than 20GBP round trip. For Dublin, I only paid the tax.
@LetMeGetTheManager: That works as long as they don't cancel it! I still haven't forgiven them for costing me my trip to Florence.
Come on dudes, the company did kind of call it. Could they have used more diplomacy and tact? Absolutely. Should they offer an apology about their conduct? Certainly. Were they mistaken with regard to the accuracy of the bloggers claims? Nope. Did they get a bit heated about it? Yes. Should I stop phrasing my post as a disjointed Q&A? Oh, yes, alright.
@alexawesome: The low prices are paid for by hiring soccer hooligans and chavs as customer service and PR people.
I think I seperate bloggers from \"civilians\". Say a random customer in the airport made a bogus claim about AirRyan. It would still be totally inappropriate for AirRyan to insult them or be public about it at all.
This guy Roe, however, is totally willing to publicly post information about air ryan... when it turns out to be misleading, he might have to take flack for that, and I think thats OK.
@philmin: Customer is always wrong, right? Let me know if you ever start a business so I can stay clear away from it.
@philmin: Why should it be any more appropriate to insult Roe over the next guy, when he found this error in the midst of buying tickets? It's not like he was poking around the site for something to expose, he's a customer the same as anyone else. That he chose to talk about a web-related issue as a web-designer on his personal blog has no bearing on the matter whatsoever.
Ideally they should have just kept their mouths shut altogether, as they've taken something ultimately trivial and given their PR a kick in the nuts over it. However, the appropriate thing to have done in the absense of self-control would have been to thank the blogger in question for exposing those bugs, reassure readers that said bugs in no way interfere in Ryanair's ability to do business properly, and then leave it at that. Even if the blogger was dead-wrong, they could have corrected him in a far less irresponsible manner.
Ryanair's employees handled this whole thing in the worst possible way, and there's no excusing that.
@alexawesome: I'm getting sick of insincere apologies. I wish people (or companies) wouldn't backpedal. If the employee and the spokesperson think he's a dateless idiot, fine. I can choose to fly with them or not.
/reply
I'm not your buddy, friend!
I think bloggers are dumb and I hate this post-modernist world in that with the joys of realizing that traditional authority and social norms mean little, we also get a million undereducated pundits spewing opinion without such nice things as FACT CHECKS and STATISTICS.
Anyway, that notwithstanding, I still think RyanAir have to be the biggest bunch of morons ever to answer criticism like that. I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THEY REPLY TO THIS COMMENT!
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@WBrink:
YOU'D BLOODY WELL TAKE YER FANCY PANTS OPINIONS AND STICK 'EM UP YER ARSE YA GRIMY GOOBER.
Ryan Air Customer Service Escalation Department
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@WBrink: Yes, because the major news corporations have been doing such a great job of doing fact checks and statistics. Sure, some blogs suck, but some are great. Hell you are commenting on a blog right now. If you think they are all such pointless drivel then don't fucking read them.
Also I don't think \"post-modernist\" means what you think it means: [en.wikipedia.org]
@wastedlife: Unless you were trying to make some post-modernist statement on authority and make some meta-joke (which is successful if that's what you're doing), you should really read that wiki page and then some of the works cited on it.
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I've flown ryan air before, it was like the southwest of Europe (ie no assigned seats, each way was purchased separately, snacks for sale not free). All in all it was a great experience for me because my flight from Paris to Dublin was only around $50 round trip. (FYI this was in October 2001 and I booked after 9/11, I have no idea what prices are like now when they aren't being sold for zero)
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I'd make a comment about them obviously net being aware of the old customer service axiom that for ever person that calls to report an issue, there are nine more that didn't bother and just stopped using your service. It is generally accecpted that each first-line customer will tell approx eight people about their experince, each of them will tell another four, and those four will tell another two each. That means that for every person who complains about something, there is an average of 640 people who will know the result by word-of-mouth only.
I guess Ryanair doesn't want that one customer that will try and get the problem fixed.
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@valarmorghulis: RyanAir flies people across oceans and a continent for less than it cost to take Amtrak from Oakland to Los Angeles.
If you're not in that seat, someone else will be. To put it simply: They don't care. They don't have to.
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This is corporate culture I can live with.
Overall, I've found that the cheaper a good or service costs, the easier it is to endure poor service by chalking it up as comedy. This case is the thesis to my theory.
For as cheap as RyanAir's flights are, I'd let a flight attendant sit on my lap and loudly berate the size and condition of my genitals for the duration of the trip. And I'd probably get a good laff about it.
I've flown Ryan Air a couple times on trips to Europe - one to Dublin from Gatwick and back, the other one way from Reus to Stanstead. It's basically a bus with wings, so you can't expect much from it. But it's cheap and gets you where you want to go, and I can't really complain. I don't really ask for much when I'm going to be in the air for less than two hours.
I'm booking another flight with them for a one way flight from Bristol to Dublin - right now the cost is going to be less than $60 total for two people. Can't beat that :).
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So just for fun. I'm going to Paris at the end of March and wanted to see how much a quick jaunt out to Dublin would be on Ryanair. I went straight from Consumerist to Ryanair's Web site, input everything, and it returned a fare for the outbound flight of 0 Euros, with taxes and fees it came to E28.22. The fare on the return flight was E4.99, plus taxes and fees total is E28.26.
So from a pure \"fare\" standpoint, the outbound flight WOULD be free. Am I an idiot, a liar, or just confused here?
@ekthesy: You're right, but the taxes and fees thing is not consistent. When looking for flights from Bristol to Ireland, I noticed trying to fly from Bristol to Shannon on one day would cost 0 Euros plus 25 Euros in taxes and fees. Going on another day would cost 20 euros plus 0 taxes and fees.
They also charge almost $15 per checked in bag.
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I personally find this HILARIOUS, and in terms of the \"ethnic implications\" of referring to RyanAir as an Irish airline,
a) It is an Irish Airline, just like Southwest is an American airline and Toyota is a Japanese car company.
b) This refreshing honesty is hilarious to the point of being rendered inoffensive, and makes me even prouder to have Irish heritage.
I refuse to shop companies that openly show contempt for their customers, regardless of how cheap they are.
Ryanair's going right on the list of businesses I will never patronize, right next to Wal-Mart.
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Although there are a lot of horror stories about Ryanair, I definately appreciate them supporting the snarky but accurate comments of their employees.
Reminds me of when I worked at a snowboard shop and angered a patron by telling him we didn't sell \"fruit booters.\" He asked to see the manager (who was also the owner) of the shop who also told him we didn't sell \"fruit booters.\" Ahh...customer service nostalgia...
Looks like the bilious leprechauns at RA have been celebrating St. Patty's a few weeks early...
Isn't RyanAir the airline that said they would be offering blowjobs on their flights?
I think it's embarassing for the company, but I can't get that worked up about it. He didn't suffer the verbal abuse while being a customer. If they talked to him that way at the ticket counter, or disembarking, that would be different. But what the hell, you post on message boards or in comment sections, you get flamed. Happens.
I'm glad I don't work for that company, though.
\"The Travolution site reached out to Ryan Air and got this response from their spoketwat:\"
\"spoketwat\"?
I'm not even sure how to comment on that phrase other that that it's making me re-think what kind of a site this is supposed to be about, if this is the type of language being used to describe a human being.
And people wonder why the world is the way it is.
The employee was probably drunk, as was their PR mouth. They are Irish after all.
Yeah, I went there.
Free air travel? Come one. I know the world is full of people looking to game any system to get freebies or crazy discounts, but, please, this guy knows the airline can't stay in business giving out free air travel.
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Yah, never really heard about this airline before, but I know for sure I'm not going to give them any of my business. At least they're up front about the fact they offer horrible customer service and their team is full of loonies.
Wow, someone needs media training :P
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Who cares? Do they have a \"Happy - Hour\" ?
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Irish temperaments meet internet thin skins... hilarity ensues.
I probably should find that offensive, but I think it's actually pretty funny. Besides, the fact that you can get a flight on Ryan Air for the equivalent of $70 or $80 should clue you in to how great their customer service will be. People don't fly Ryan Air for the great service - they fly because you can't beat the price! I wish we had an American equivalent to this or EasyJet.
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I've flown Ryanair many, many times, and they are unbeatable if you want a very cheap, utterly no-frills experience. They fly to a TON of European destinations for far, far cheaper than any other carrier. You might find yourself flying to some little-used (other than by Ryanair) airfield nowhere near the city you thought you were flying to (yeah, you only make the mistake of assuming the airport Ryanair flies to is \"the\" Wherever Airport once...), but still - they're a bargain.
They're definitely not too hot on the customer service, or the giving a shit about their customers, though. Then again, which airline is? Ryanair's take on it seems to be \"you get what you pay for, now go away and stop bothering us\". Lost luggage? Tough shit, we're a budget airline, what do you expect? (They've never lost my luggage, but friends have had a response pretty much along those lines when it's happened to them).
I did write a letter of complaint (and I never do that) to them once, years ago, after being screamed at by some evil check-in woman who took an instant dislike to me and my mother (story too tedious to relate, but seriously, the woman was psychotic)... I got a response in the mail basically telling me to go fuck myself.
Meh. Wouldn't stop me from flying with them. Their prices are so good, they could call me an idiot to my face and I wouldn't care. Sure, it's not very fun playing musical chairs for a seat, but a 99 pence fare sure makes up for it!
Certainly does. I've heard people whine and whine about how terrible it is that Ryanair doesn't allocate seats and makes it first-come-first-served (according to how early you checked in, anyway), instead. Seriously, on the size of plane they use, it's hardly the nightmarish free-for-all that people make it out to be.
Why should they have to be polite, apologize, or be anything of the sort? Companies are 'supposed to' behave in a certain manner while the public can be as abusive as they please. Kind of reminds me of the old Bill Cosby joke. He postulated a world where all major decisions were decided by a simple coin toss. The winner of the toss got to decide the rules for the engagement. In the case of the Brits vs. the colonists, the colonists won the toss. They decided the they could wear anything they wanted to, shoot from behind trees and run away, etc. but the Brits had to wear red and march in a straight lin. Go Ryan Air.
pfft... The guy has it coming. I happen not to care. As long as I get from Point A to Point B, they can do whatever they want. You can't beat the price, and for what you are paying for... what are you expecting?
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Let's face it, most bloggers are idiots.
Apparently Ryanair is doing so well, it doesn't need any more money from the consumer.
I love stories about Ryanair because they always bring the harrumpherati out in the comments section. Fact is there is very little you or I can do as a customer that would hurt Ryanair. Don't fly 'em, that's fine, there is no shortage of people who'll take those $60 r/t flights. When you get to the pricing points Ryanair is at, the usual business and customer service axioms are no longer relevant -- at that price, they're the ones doing you a favor and they know it.
Harrumph away if you must, though.
Am I the only person who thinks that if he spoke to customer like that that he would fired on the spot.
Why not simply explain the situation to the customer, i.e. why he is not getting the result he expects or if there is a genuine issue refer it to IT.
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RyanAir totally overreacted. I could understand the comment and PR response if the blogger's original post had been insulting but it wasn't.
If this is how they react when someone thinks they found a bug on their web site it must be impossible to resolve any problems you have when you actually fly with them.
\"decided t make\" or do you mean \"decided tmake\" so the \"t\" flows with the \"make\"
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You get what you pay for....
I've flown budget airlines in Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa and South America. Ryanair is easily the worst airline I've ever come into contact with. I had three flights booked with them. The first they cancelled twice, each time involving an additional 24 hour stay (plus bus trip, plus taxi trip, plus reorganising accomodation/ongoing travel). The second, after I booked it, they decided they weren't going to fly that route after all, meaning I had to rearrange all connecting travel for that one. The third they cancelled once (I didn't hang around waiting to find out if they'd cancel it a second time). Frankly I think the whole thing is an enormous con job.
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Thought this was an onion article for a second
@Chongo: Right? I know I shouldn't, but I actually kind of love this.