Ryanair Devious, Easyjet Fantastic

Here is a little comparisson between the lows of and the highs of , and a little story about how we came to get two free flights each AND NOW we get free accomodation when we take our free flight!

If you read my previous post Sardinia for FREE, you will see how helpful and delighful easyJet have been in arranging, free flights for us. You will also see that they had arranged a free chauffeur car to and from Stansted airport, well, that was where it went a bit wrong this weekend. The car arrived to pick 5 of us up at 4am to take us to the airport (1 hour away). The problem was the car could only take 4 passengers. So myself, Carla and Bryony decided to go to the airport leaving Simon and James to catch a car that had hastily been arranged to arrive 10 minutes later. When we arrived at the Ryanair check-in desk we were told that the desk was going to close 45 minutes before departure. We were told that they could not wait an extra five minutes for the guys who were busy pulling into the airport and they rudely and abruptly closed the desk. The guys arrived at the desk as the lady packed up and walked away.

We were left with no alternative but for the three of us to fly to Sardinia and leave Simon and James to catch the 5.20pm flight all of 12 hours later! Of course when we arrived at our boarding gate there was a long queue which we waited in for a good 20 minutes and the flight took off 10 minutes early, so there was no need for Ryanair to stiff us so badly. I understand that they advertise Ryanair as the most punctual airline, but it certainly does come at a price - ZERO flexibily from their staff. They knew the guys were two minutes away, they knew they only had hand luggage but they refused to give them their boarding passes!

Back to the pleasures of easyJet . The lady who made our arrangements has been nothing short of superb in all she has done to date. Even being polite on the phone to us when we called her on her private cell phone as she lay in bed at 5.30am on Saturday morning. She tidied up the rest of the arrangements for Simon and James to fly out and meet us, apologised profusely even though it wasn’t her fault (chauffeur company’s fault) and first thing back at work Tuesday morning we got this email from her:

I have paid for Simon plus one to transfer to the later flight with Ryanair after ringing all London airports nobody else fly’s there except easyJet and Ryanair today.

I have offered Simon as a form of compensation to help ease the upset - your 5 free flights as we spoke of and two nights accommodation for you all to have a holiday on us again in the future.

Please pass my apologies to the whole party involved and I look forward to booking and paying for another break for you all on easyJet in the near future.
Kind regards
Marianne

So thats free flights to Sardinia over a long weekend (pricey), AND another free flight PLUS accommodation costs paid for. SUPERB! Thanks easyJet , its been a pleasure doing business with you.

Back to the misery of Ryanair. Yesterday I tried to book flights on their website where they are advertising £0.14 flights. Do you think I could get them, the answer as you guessed is NO. I stuck to their guideline dates. I checked many different dates within the guidelines and many different destinations. I then phoned customer services who charge 10p a minute. After twenty minutes of waiting I had a rude man tell me I can only book the flight online and he can’t help me. I told him I COULDN’T book online but he said he could not help me, said I should call the internet help line which costs me £1 a minute! So I tried calling because I am almost ready to report them to the ASA (advertising Standards Association) for false advertising. The story pretty much ends there, I simply cannot get through on the line. See if you can book to any destination on their website for the price they are currently quoting, unfortunately it just cannot be done!

Heres another little sneaky move Ryanair have come up with, from now on you have to pay extra to check in luggage. If I think hard about it then I probably agree with this as a business principle but I don’t agree with the way they don’t advertise this on the ticket price. I can see a lot of arguments at the check-in desk over the next few months!

Finally I thought politeness and customer service was free but it appears in all the flights I have taken with Ryanair (4 this year already) they have removed this to drive ticket prices down. Their staff at Stansted are repeatedly the rudest I have ever encountered anywhere in the world.

Of course I will still take their flights because they are cheap but I just wish they could start being helpful, polite and HONEST! Given the choice is a clear winner over any time and I would actually pay a premium to fly with the orange over the blue!