The Bus With Wings
28/08/08 22:29 Filed in: General
Nonsense
Like many Irish people, I have mixed feelings about
Ryanair. On the one hand, I am glad to see an Irish
company being the leading player in its sector across
Europe. On the other hand, having flown with them on
numerous occasions and experienced their version of
customer service up close many times, I am not their
biggest fan.
Another Irishman, Paul Kilduff, has written a book about his own relationship with Ryanair, or Ruinair as he calls it (and with the low-cost airline sector in general), which I read recently. The idea for the book came about after Kilduff was stranded for ten hours in Malaga, waiting for a Ryanair flight that had been delayed by technical problems. While he seethed and fumed at the lack of information or assistance, he hatched a cunning plan - he would fly to every country in the then 15-state EU with Ryanair and record his experiences.
What came out of this idea is partly a critique of Ryanair’s business model and approach to customer service, and partly a jaundiced travel guide to the various destinations to which Ryanair and other low-cost carriers fly. Sadly, it’s something of a dog’s dinner of a book, as I got the impression that Kilduff couldn’t quite make up his mind what exactly he was trying to achieve with it. He is critical - sometimes savagely - of the way the airline treats its customers and staff, but he obviously admires it enough to buy shares in the company. He states towards the end of the book that the stake he purchased has roughly doubled in value since he bought it. I only hope that he sold at the crest of the market, because Ryanair’s shares haven’t been doing so well of late.
There are some genuinely laugh out loud moments in the book, especially when he discusses the theory and practice of selecting a seat and discouraging fellow passengers from sitting in the next seat. (The best technique I reckon is the one he describes whereby he catches the eye of whoever is heading for the seat - man or woman, it doesn’t matter - winks at them and pats the vacant seat.) Overall, though the book suffers from a smug, smart-arse writing style that got on my nerves after a while. Why did he have to refer to Euros as “yo-yos” all the way through the book?
But back to my own love-hate relationship with the alternative national carrier. Working in the wine business, I have to fly to various locations around Europe to visit suppliers, and as it happens Ryanair’s policy of flying to former military airbases in the middle of nowhere can actually be quite handy sometimes. If I need to go to Verona, I can fly into Brescia (via Stansted). If my visit is to the Languedoc, I can fly directly to Carcassonne from Dublin. Karlsruhe/Baden is a short skip across the Rhine into the heart of my beloved Alsace.
What I hate most about Ryanair is the deception. Ryanair calls itself “The Low Fares Airline”. In the strictest sense, that is true, but it depends on how you define what exactly the “fare” is. To me the fare is the total cost of the journey, i.e. what Ryanair charge my credit card at the end of the transaction. They say that the “fare” is the headline price they quote before any taxes and charges, but you have to remember that Ryanair (and every other airline that operates a similar price structure) makes a profit on those taxes and charges. You can be damned sure that Ryanair do not pay Servisair (or whoever it is that does their baggage handling) €20 to get your bag from the check-in desk to the plane. Nor do they pay the airport €10 per passenger for the use of their check-in area. Nor do they pay €5 per passenger per flight to their credit card services provider.
Imagine for a moment walking into a wine shop and seeing a stack of wines on offer for 1c per 75cl (with small print advising “Plus taxes and charges”.) You grab a dozen and head for the till. The assistant rings it up, and charges you €2 for each bottle in which to transport your 75cl of wine, €10 for the box, €40 for excise duty (even though it should be no more than €24.57) and a fiver for paying by card (they don’t take any other method of payment.) You can take it to your car straight away for another tenner, or else wait until all the “priority” customers have loaded theirs. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such good value, does it? Yet this is exactly what Ryainair (and others) are doing in their approach to fare structure.
By peddling the bullshit line that the “fare” element of the total cost of the flight is low, they try to endear themselves to the travelling public. You hear it time and time again on the radio, either O’Leary or one of his goons spouting some nonsense like “The people of Ireland are demanding lower fares and this is what Ryanair are giving them.” If this bullshit is repeated often enough it will eventually auto-install itself on the consciousness. Like the irritating jingle played over and over again as the “self-loading cargo” boards Ryanair’s planes, selling us scratchcards, hangover cures and some weird concoction called “Whiskeycognac.”
Another Irishman, Paul Kilduff, has written a book about his own relationship with Ryanair, or Ruinair as he calls it (and with the low-cost airline sector in general), which I read recently. The idea for the book came about after Kilduff was stranded for ten hours in Malaga, waiting for a Ryanair flight that had been delayed by technical problems. While he seethed and fumed at the lack of information or assistance, he hatched a cunning plan - he would fly to every country in the then 15-state EU with Ryanair and record his experiences.
What came out of this idea is partly a critique of Ryanair’s business model and approach to customer service, and partly a jaundiced travel guide to the various destinations to which Ryanair and other low-cost carriers fly. Sadly, it’s something of a dog’s dinner of a book, as I got the impression that Kilduff couldn’t quite make up his mind what exactly he was trying to achieve with it. He is critical - sometimes savagely - of the way the airline treats its customers and staff, but he obviously admires it enough to buy shares in the company. He states towards the end of the book that the stake he purchased has roughly doubled in value since he bought it. I only hope that he sold at the crest of the market, because Ryanair’s shares haven’t been doing so well of late.
There are some genuinely laugh out loud moments in the book, especially when he discusses the theory and practice of selecting a seat and discouraging fellow passengers from sitting in the next seat. (The best technique I reckon is the one he describes whereby he catches the eye of whoever is heading for the seat - man or woman, it doesn’t matter - winks at them and pats the vacant seat.) Overall, though the book suffers from a smug, smart-arse writing style that got on my nerves after a while. Why did he have to refer to Euros as “yo-yos” all the way through the book?
But back to my own love-hate relationship with the alternative national carrier. Working in the wine business, I have to fly to various locations around Europe to visit suppliers, and as it happens Ryanair’s policy of flying to former military airbases in the middle of nowhere can actually be quite handy sometimes. If I need to go to Verona, I can fly into Brescia (via Stansted). If my visit is to the Languedoc, I can fly directly to Carcassonne from Dublin. Karlsruhe/Baden is a short skip across the Rhine into the heart of my beloved Alsace.
What I hate most about Ryanair is the deception. Ryanair calls itself “The Low Fares Airline”. In the strictest sense, that is true, but it depends on how you define what exactly the “fare” is. To me the fare is the total cost of the journey, i.e. what Ryanair charge my credit card at the end of the transaction. They say that the “fare” is the headline price they quote before any taxes and charges, but you have to remember that Ryanair (and every other airline that operates a similar price structure) makes a profit on those taxes and charges. You can be damned sure that Ryanair do not pay Servisair (or whoever it is that does their baggage handling) €20 to get your bag from the check-in desk to the plane. Nor do they pay the airport €10 per passenger for the use of their check-in area. Nor do they pay €5 per passenger per flight to their credit card services provider.
Imagine for a moment walking into a wine shop and seeing a stack of wines on offer for 1c per 75cl (with small print advising “Plus taxes and charges”.) You grab a dozen and head for the till. The assistant rings it up, and charges you €2 for each bottle in which to transport your 75cl of wine, €10 for the box, €40 for excise duty (even though it should be no more than €24.57) and a fiver for paying by card (they don’t take any other method of payment.) You can take it to your car straight away for another tenner, or else wait until all the “priority” customers have loaded theirs. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such good value, does it? Yet this is exactly what Ryainair (and others) are doing in their approach to fare structure.
By peddling the bullshit line that the “fare” element of the total cost of the flight is low, they try to endear themselves to the travelling public. You hear it time and time again on the radio, either O’Leary or one of his goons spouting some nonsense like “The people of Ireland are demanding lower fares and this is what Ryanair are giving them.” If this bullshit is repeated often enough it will eventually auto-install itself on the consciousness. Like the irritating jingle played over and over again as the “self-loading cargo” boards Ryanair’s planes, selling us scratchcards, hangover cures and some weird concoction called “Whiskeycognac.”