Passenger

IMO, this airline beats other airlines and rail passenger operations when it comes to mediocre customer service.  They even charge passengers to use the toilet.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31760279

Low-cost airline Ryanair, which mulls making passengers carry their own bags to hold and asking for £1 for the use of in-flight toilets, is now looking into offering standing room for passengers on its planes.

Low-cost airline Ryanair, which mulls making passengers carry their own bags to hold and asking for £1 for the use of in-flight toilets, is now looking into offering standing room for passengers on its planes. Ryanair has made a "very preliminary" call to Boeing about making planes with standing room in the hope of packing more passengers in, Stephen McNamara, a spokesman for Ryanair, told CNBC.com.

"We'd have to work with Boeing on something to lean on, like a stool," he explained. "I know that's something that Airbus looked in, something the Chinese airlines are looking into."

Passengers would be strapped in their standing stools, at least for take-off and landing, he said.

If the measure is approved by safety regulators, 4 or 5 rows of seats would be removed to make way for the standing stools, he said.
 

Ryanair seems to have picked up where Peoplexpress left off on reducing costs to the nth degree and took this concept to its logical extreme.

It looks like CNBC once again got suckered in by Ryanair's PR department.  No, Ryanair does not charge passengers to use the loo on the plane.  The CEO, Michael O'Leary, made comments about doing that earlier this year but nothing's come of it.

Ryanair's Boeing 737-800s can hold a maximum of 189 passengers.  That limit is determined not by the number of seats you can cram in (and Ryanair does squeeze them in) but by the number of emergency exits on the airplane.  There are 8 on a 737-800:  4 doors and 4 overwing window exits.  The latest "stretch" model of the 737, the -900ER, has 10:  6 doors and 4 overwing window exits.  That model of 737 can seat over 200 passengers. 

The other issue is that the seats on commercial aircraft must be able to withstand a force of 16G's (16 times the force of gravity) for protection of passengers in an accident.  I highly doubt you could design a "bar stool" that could withstand those kinds of forces.

To its credit Ryanair regularly finds ways to stay in the public eye, even using "bogus" articles such as this one that the company will then be quick to deny.  Ryanair seems to subscribe to the theory that any exposure in the media is a positive.  To its credit, the numbers are hard to beat.  Ryanair is quickly becoming the largest airline in Europe if it's not already there.

It is by no means just CNBC which has been suckered, as these two stories (standing passengers and paying to use the toilet) have been very widely reported in the UK press.  Ryanair has actually managed to turn its reputation for customer service so awful that it has to be deliberate into a useful publicity tool.  Stories like these are occasionally released on slow news days purely to generate free publicity which perpetuates the company’s reputation for cutting costs to the bone in order to keep prices down.  Given Ryanair’s track record it is hard to know what is a publicity stunt and what isn’t – they may not charge for using the toilet yet, but they do charge for using a wheelchair, and calls to their complaints telephone line are charged at premium rate.  They are notorious for advertising unbelievably low ticket prices without mentioning the taxes or the countless expensive add-ons from which they actually make their money – in fact they are constantly in trouble with the UK Advertising Standards Authority for misleading or downright dishonest advertising.  If this particular company were to release a story claiming that they were about to introduce a rental charge and deposit for lifejackets there would be no shortage of people who would believe it!  The standing passengers story was put out about two days after it was reported that a Chinese airline (Spring Airways) was considering something similar – and no doubt when Ryanair heard that they saw it as another opportunity for free publicity.

 

Ryanair competes very aggressively for UK domestic passengers, but for many journeys they still cannot rival the rail operators on price, or even overall journey time (let alone quality).  For example, looking at their websites this evening I could travel from Glasgow Prestwick to London Stanstead and back for the coming Friday/Monday  with a headline fare of £29.99 down and £14.99 back, (with advance booking it could have been much less).  Of course, to this you must add:

 

·         £5 each way for check in fees;

·         £26.86 in taxes/fees outwards;

·         £28.27 in taxes/fees on the return flight;

·         A credit card booking charge (£1 each way, IIRC);

·         Whatever extortionate amount they decide to fleece me for should I wish to take more than a carry-on spongebag as luggage (I exaggerate only very slightly); and

·         The costs, time and stress of getting to/from two airports which are 30 miles out from their respective cities at the unsocial times of day when Ryanair gets the cheapest landing/takeoff slots.

 

By comparison, the cheapest prices quoted for these dates by the three train operators are:

·         Virgin Trains £54.99 Glasgow Central to London Euston return (4¾ hour journey);

·         National Express £114.80 Glasgow Central to London King’s Cross return (5 hours); and

·         First ScotRail £100 Glasgow Central to London Euston return (sleeping car berth)

 

All the train tickets could have been very much cheaper booked further in advance – the cheapest single tickets available start at £12 on Virgin, £18.55 on NatEx and £19 on First Scotrail’s sleeper.  Even if you’re lucky enough to get one of Ryanair’s ‘1 pence’ advance booked tickets you’re still far better of staying on the ground, IMHO.