# Dear Ryan Air...



## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

Hey up.

Nicked from another forum :wink: .

Ryanair Feedback 

Dear Sir/Madam, 

I am writing for the attention of your customer experience team. I am definitely a customer, and believe me, you didn’t fail providing us with an experience. 

My wife and I had booked to fly from Stansted on the Thursday 17th April, evening flight to Bratislava. After 2 hours of fun, fun, fun, stuck on the M25 doing 20 mph, we arrived at Stansted check in with just one hour until the flight. Knowing the strict Ryan Air policy on ‘check in closes 40 mins before the flight’ as you are the Low Fare Taxi of The Skies, we went straight to the Ryan Air assistant and explained our plight. She said we were still within the time and all would be fine but we had to make the attendant at check in aware and he would assist from there. 

We approached the attendant as instructed and explained. Unfortunately, in the main part, due to him being a child, and forgetting to bring his mother to work, he heard only half of the words before his brain fell apart like a wet cake. He led us to the line for closing gates, advised we should wait and all would be ok. We stood patiently in the line for 20 minutes. We got to the front of the line and the lady, who we shall from this point refer to a Vacant, explained that she had literally just that second closed the flight and we had missed it. We complained that we had done as instructed and she said it was the child’s fault because he should have advised her that we were trying to board a closing flight and that because he hadn’t told her it was therefore our fault we had missed the plane. 

Confused by this process of blame apportioning, another check in clerk, who we shall refer to as Not That Bright, tried to blame us for not responding to the last call for the flight as we should have made ourselves known. I argued that the last call had not been made. Not That Bright then questioned Vacant on whether she had done a final call. Vacant did what she does best and looked, well,…… After establishing that the child had not informed Vacant we were here, and Vacant had forgotten to do a last call and that all of this was irreversible, and my fault, Not That Bright and Vacant conferred to agree this was not a problem they wished to deal with and told us to get in a very, very long line of very, very unhappy people at the quite wrongly titled ‘Customer Services Counter’ as it was in fact a Customer Shouting Desk. We complained and requested the attention of a manager. 

Out came Colin, a man so angry all his hair had literally fallen out. He was so aggressive I can only assume he had accidentally inserted something sharp into somewhere private and been unable to remove it before he came to work. He was definitely a middle Gimp. I know this as Vacant and Not That Bright were clearly quite scared of him, and he can’t have been a Big Cheese as he was talking directly to customers and we all know from the papers that no-one in Big Cheese management at Ryan Air has ever seen, let alone spoken to an actual customer. 

Middle Gimp had clearly listen hard at Ryan Air Middle Gimp school as he managed to take two perfectly calm and sane adults and in a matter of seconds reduce them to angry people considering violence. 

‘Check in opens 3 hours before the flight’ he barked repeatedly as if it was the answer to every question in life. We tried to ask Middle Gimp direct questions about why it was necessary for us to miss the flight because the Child had forgotten to do his job, and Vacant had forgotten to do hers. 

‘Why is this our fault, and why should we miss the flight because Ryan Air staff have admitted they made errors?. 

‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’ 

‘Do you acknowledge we have just cause for complaint as we tried to do the right thing and the only reason we are not on the plane is because of communication failures with Ryan Air Staff?’ 

‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’ 

‘What colour are my trousers?’ 

‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’ 

‘Do you think economic sanctions on Russia will diffuse the escalating situation in Ukraine?’ 

‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’ 

‘Were Man Utd right to fire David Moyes?’ 

‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’ 

‘My tinkle is hurting, could you take a look if I promise not to tell anyone?’ 

‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’ 

Middle Gimp then conferred with Vacant and Not That Bright, and agreed that this was all our fault as we should have noticed that Child had made an error and we should have called the flight ourselves to assist Vacant in doing her job because she was clearly busy being, well,…… Middle Gimp then insisted we go to customer the Customer Shouting Desk, as he was definitely not going to do anything else. This was handy as the queue was very long so that by the time we would reach the front the plane would be half way to Bratislava and the problem would be solved. 

We waited patiently in line as customer after customer stood at the desk to hear the same song; 

‘No, no, I can’t do that, no, there are no Middle Gimps available, no, no, sorry, no, give me all your money’ 

We got to the Customer Shouting Desk and explained our plight to the lady there (who was actually very nice and clearly should not be working for Ryan Air as a result). She apologised but explained that Middle Gimp had finished being angry for the day and had returned to his padded cage and there were no other Middle Gimps around. We would have to book in to the flight for the next day and we would have to pay £110 each to change the ticket. When she tried to re-book the flight she said that the flight we had tried to get was actually delayed by 1 hour and still at the air port and that what we should do is run to the gate with all our luggage, she would call through and they would check our bags into the hold at the gate. We ran as fast as we could, which is not very fast because I am fat, to security to do as instructed. Security advised us that because our flight should have left, even though it hadn’t, the ticket machine would not open the barrier for us and we would need to return to the Customer Shouting Desk. 

We waited patiently in the very long queue yet again for about 40 minutes to discover the nice lady had also gone home now so we had to explain the whole thing again to a new lady that looked like all the joy had been removed from her life at birth. She recited the Ryan Air customer services song with a sterling level of apathy and dreariness, I am surprised she could muster the will just to breather and stay alive. 

‘No, no, I can’t do that, no, there are no Middle Gimps available, no, no, sorry, no, give me all your money’ 

She recited it with perfection, Middle Gimps across the world would have been in awe and the effectiveness of the techniques taught in Middle Gimp School. Seeing no other option but to hand over all our cash and come back the next morning we happily paid and got new flights. 

As the new flight was at 6.25am in the morning we decided to get a hotel, we paid £79 for a room and got a taxi. 

So, our customer experience was insightful and liberating. From the incompetent Child with a brain so full of girls and Vauxhall Corsa modifications he couldn’t actually listen or speak, through Vacant and Not That Bright who decided on reflection that anything they did wrong was our fault for not pointing it out to them, right through Middle Gimp who made a Tasmanian Devil look calm and Zen like, and the sad one, oh so sad, having every last drop of life sucked out of her by her chosen career at the Ryan Air Customer Shouting Desk. I very nearly jumped over the desk just to give her a cuddle and tell her everything would be alright if she could just muster the will to leave the Ryan Air Customer Shouting Desk and find a more fulfilling job, like starting the very first Israeli pork pie factory, or being a parking attendant in Tower Hamlets, or in fact just resigning herself to a slow and uncomfortable death would have been indistinguishable from the current position and would require much less effort. 

The net result of this ‘experience’ was; 

New Flights – £220 
Hotel £79 
Taxi x 2 £50 
Worlds most expensive sandwich in the only hotel we could get £35 

1 x significant breach of Tort Law (2008 as quoted by Lord Atkin) by Ryan Air, Google it, it’s a cracking read. I will leave you to decide the monetary value of this. 

1 x very angry and upset wife, in particular with Middle Gimp for being so unbelievably rude. 

1 x Missed wedding reception for our Slovakian family (sorry, forgot to mention this nugget earlier) who all turned up from all over the country to see us for an event we were forced to miss, because Child and Vacant are clueless at best and Middle Gimp has anger management issues. 

So, thank you Ryan Air for a comfortable and enjoyable experience. I have watched a program called the news so I fully expect this to land on the desk of the customer services team underneath the empty bottles and sandwich wrappers that you also file there. You treated us badly, you cost us money and made us miss our wedding reception through a display of incompetence I have not seen since Greece was allowed to have money and a cheque book. 

I sincerely doubt you will do anything about this, compensate us, apologise, or even respond according to the news, so I have sent this recorded and sign for delivery to absolutely confirm my opinion of Ryan Air and that it is not just ‘lost in the post’ 

Regards 

You bunch of……………. 

P.S. Maybe Middle Gimp in particular, but Child, Not That Bright, and Vacant should purchase one of your reasonable priced tickets and go to Slovakia (assuming they were actually allowed on the plane. The Ryan Air employees there are smart, clever, bilingual, helpful, and polite and they should in my opinion experience an example of how they should do their job. The Slovak staff could explain it to them, but they wouldn’t be able to understand it for them, so it may be a waste of time after all. 

ray.


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## GEMMY (Jun 19, 2006)

That's why Ryanair are the ****e 

tony

apologies for the autocorrect pc computer that didn't like crap


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## camallison (Jul 15, 2009)

I only flew with them once and never again - convinced I had booked a livestock cargo flight by mistake - Birmingham to Dublin in 1999. Even Easyjet were far better then.

Colin


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## stevegos (Jun 23, 2013)

Very funny.

I must say I have flown with Ryanair on over 80 occasions and just about all my experiences have been fine. Not wonderful but not bad either.

If you have low expectations (and know how it all works) for paying £52 (or what ever it costs) for a return flight then what ever happens is a bonus!


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## prof20 (Jan 11, 2007)

*Spare a Thought For Michael O'Leary*

"Spare a thought for Michael O'Leary, Chief Executive of 'Ryanair'.......

Arriving in a hotel in Dublin, he went to the bar and asked for a pint of draught Guinness. The barman nodded and said, "That will be one Euro please."

Somewhat taken aback, O'Leary replied, "That's very cheap," and handed over his money.

"Well, we try to stay ahead of the competition", said the barman. "And we are serving free pints every Wednesday evening from 6 until 8. We have the cheapest beer in Ireland "

"That is remarkable value" Michael comments

"I see you don't seem to have a glass, so you'll probably need one of ours. That will be 3 euro please."

O'Leary scowled, but paid up. He took his drink and walked towards a seat. "Ah, you want to sit down?" said the barman. "That'll be an extra 2 euro. - You could have pre-booked the seat, and it would have only cost you a Euro."

"I think you may to be too big for the seat sir, can I ask you to sit in this frame please"

Michael attempts to sit down but the frame is too small and when he can't squeeze in he complains "Nobody would fit in that little frame".

"I'm afraid if you can't fit in the frame you'll have to pay an extra surcharge of &#128;4.00 for your seat sir"

O'Leary swore to himself, but paid up. "I see that you have brought your laptop with you" added the barman. "And since that wasn't pre-booked either, that will be another 3 euro."

O'Leary was so annoyed that he walked back to the bar, slammed his drink on the counter, and yelled, "This is ridiculous, I want to speak to the manager".

"Ah, I see you want to use the counter," says the barman, "that will be 2 euro please." O'Leary's face was red with rage.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Of course I do Mr. O'Leary,"

"I've had enough, what sort of Hotel is this? I come in for a quiet drink and you treat me like this. I insist on speaking to a manager!"

"Here is his E mail address, or if you wish, you can contact him between 9 and 9.10 every morning, Monday to Tuesday at this free phone number. Calls are free, until they are answered, then there is a talking charge of only 10 cent per second"

"I will never use this bar again"

"OK sir, but remember, we are the only hotel in Ireland selling pints for one Euro".

:lol:


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## anjasola (Jun 24, 2009)

Ryan Air are OK in my book.


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## rosalan (Aug 24, 2009)

We flew to Marrakech in May with Ryan Air... I dreaded it. Sorting out how to print out our own Boarding Cards turned out to be the worst part, otherwise the 'bus' was on time each way and the seating was fair. My sandwich was not over-priced but I still had a sense of doom from the moment I learned that they were to be our carrier.
I have also travelled with Easy Jet who seem to have mastered the art of keeping the world on a more even keel than their competitors.

I think that we have very high expectations of these cut-price airlines, based upon the traditionally all inclusive flights of yesteryear. It should be noted that the more inclusive "Yes Sir!" , "No Sir", service is still available; at a price and under situations experienced by rayrecrok he may have expected some comeback, at least a free ongoing ticket and hotel charges waived.

Ryanair do provide a service but only on their conditions.

Alan


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## nicholsong (May 26, 2009)

With all these low-cost carriers it pays to do comparisons of door-door and including baggage and whatever you might buy in-flight.

We have used Ryanair when they are the only carrier, e.g. Katowice-Manchester and Katowice Edinburgh. As these trips were to/from the MH we only needed hand baggage so quite cheap - EDI was £18.

Ryanair has relaxed some rules and charges; they no longer make you, when booking, eliminate the extras - you now select them if you want them. If you make a silly mistake you now have 24hrs to correct it free.

They still however fly to some inconvenient airports.

My preference of the carriers we have used is, in descending order,


Air Berlin

Norwegian Air

Easyjet

Wizzair

Ryanair

The most impressive bit of service I had from any of them was flying Air Berlin to La Palma(via Berlin). En-route to Berlin the crew came to our seats with a list of our seat number, name, final destination and transfer gate number at Berlin, which was an easy 100m walk along the terminal in transit. We already had the second leg seat numbers allocated in Krakow. It is the nearest that I have come to a full-service carrier.

When flying routes from UK and where BA have low-cost competition they can be cheaper for me because I can get to/from LHR free on bus pass instead of £20-30 to LUT STN or LGW.

Geoff


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