Cheap Flights, Are Ryanair Ruining Holidays?

Bargain Flights with Low cost Airlines, Do You Save Money by Booking Online?

I don't think so!

Ryanair and Easy Jet have been a major factor in destroying a once proud and high class institution. While all the other airlines are forced to follow suit we are left with little or no other alternative.

I remember the days when flying was a real pleasure. I used to fly with Monarch Airlines on a regular basis until they went budget. You were treated like a king from the moment you arrived at the airport. Checking in with highly trained airline representatives full of smiles and wishing you a nice flight and a wonderful holiday.

Boarding via a boarding gate attached to the plane and being given a choice of two daily national newspapers to read for free. Having a choice of two free meals with a complementary bottle of red or white wine. Free alcoholic drinks, tea or coffee and as much as you want. Watching quality TV sitcoms and movies on the overhead TV screens with your complementary headphones or listen to one of the many entertaining in-flight radio shows. To round it all off a hot towel to freshen up with leaving you refreshed and ready to enjoy your holiday.

The cost of this luxury? On average a typical flight to the Canaries from the UK would be £80 each way with Monarch, it was a set price all in.

Now?

You are greeted by people who don't even work for the airline you booked with but work for some third party agency who couldn't care less about you and this is just the beginning of your flight from hell.

ONE ANSWER, NONE.

They appear to be cheaper flights as advertised but when you finally add up the costs they can end up costing you a lot more than booking with a more reputable company that doesn't offer cheap flights.

Let's break this down.

Firstly, you book online and get a discount for doing so because you are cutting out dealing with a real person, yes?

No! You are not because you are charged a fee for booking online and for using your credit card. This fee can be as much as £15 !! Now tell me this. How the hell are you supposed to book a flight online without using a credit card? This is scam number one and to make things worse booking online has put somebody out of a job too. Remember going to the travel agents and being offered various choices by a nice chatty rep? The holiday started there for me.

Secondly, these so called cheap flights depart at the most inconvenient times of day. The Graveyard Shift I like to call them. These are the hours when no-body in their right mind would want to travel.

Let's say your flight was at 7 am

Check-in is at least 2 hours before the plane leaves. You have to then get to the airport no later than 5am. Depending on where you live, it's going to take on average 1 to 2 hours drive to the airport. So you have to leave home at 3am to be on the safe side, yes? You need to get up at least 1 to 2 hours before you leave home to get dressed, washed, prepared and fed. It's now between 1 and 2 in the morning. How much sleep have you had? Are there any buses or trains running to the airport at this hour? No. So you either drive yourself and park your car long stay at the airport for an unthinkable sum of money or you get a taxi at a rate of time and a half or submit a family friend to a sleepless night just like yourselves.

Budget airlines like Ryanair cut costs to such an extent that your holiday can be ruined before you even get there, IF you get there.

To start with you have to pay for each suitcase you take with you. They call this hold baggage to confuse you the first time you book online. You would think that hold baggage is something you hold yes? No, this is baggage that goes in the hold area of the aircraft because you are supposed to know what different parts of the aircraft are called. The price for a suitcase weighing up to 20kg on Ryanair is £50 return but you do have the option of paying for the suitcase to fly just one one way in-case you decided that you don't like wearing clothes anymore.

Please be aware that it is very easy to fall into the trap of paying for your suitcase to travel in one direction only. This happened to me. I booked 4 connecting flights with Ryanair last year and paid for my suitcase (hold luggage) for all the flights online, so I thought. But on my last flight the check in woman told me that I hadn't pre-paid for my hold baggage on that flight. I couldn't understand how this could have happened and it was obviously a problem with the online booking form. So I had to leave the line and go to another desk to pay €50 in cash before I could check in, AGAIN. It's lucky I had €50 left after my holiday as I was saving that for food and drink and taxis. Obviously this left me hungry, thirsty and stranded at the airport when we landed.

As I said before, budget airlines don't even have their own check in staff. These are people hired by an agency who couldn't care less about you.

You are given 2 hours to check in your luggage and board the flight, you can't check in any earlier as the check in desk doesn't open until 2 hours before the departure time. On my first flight of the 4 connecting horrific flights I had with Ryanair they had just two desks open for 4 flights all leaving at about the same time. It took me well over an hour to check my suitcase in because the line was so long. Then I had to join a queue for passport control which was just as long. I realised I was not going to make it in time so I called a security guard and told him about my situation. He said I can't jump to the front of the queue until Ryanair call out my name over the tannoy and when they do he would happily escort me to the front. I was not the only one. My name nor anybody else's name was called over the tannoy and many of us got to the boarding gate to find it was closed, yet the plane was sat there waiting.

RYANAIR COST CUTTING MADE US MISS OUR FLIGHT

This was another fault of Ryanair cost cutting. Announcements over the tannoy are made by an airport employee and Ryaniar specifically told the airport that they do not want this service, obviously to save money but this resulted in us missing the flight and being stranded at the airport.

How many other airport services do Ryanair get away with not paying? Don't forget you are paying for these services in the form of Airport Tax upfront when you book online.

Why was the plane sat there waiting? Because it had my suitcase and about 10 other peoples suitcases on it and it was not allowed to leave until all our suitcases had been removed from the hold. We, a group of us, argued with the staff at the gate to contact the pilot to open the doors so we could board the plane but we were given the brush off.

We had to watch in disbelief as the plane was delayed a further 30 minutes while the baggage handlers drove up to the plane, opened up the hold and sorted through the hundreds of suitcases trying to find ours. It would have been a lot quicker to simply let us board.

If your hand luggage is over 10kg you get charged a further £35 and it must fit into a rack that is kept next to the boarding gate.

You can however remove clothing from your hand luggage and wear it to get the weight down to the required limit. I mean, come on! What difference does it make?

On one of the 4 connecting flights that I had they made me push my bag into one of these measuring racks and it fitted but got jammed. Me and the flight attendant struggled for over 10 minutes trying to release it, I was then the last one to board the plane.

With most buget airlines there is no form of entertainment what so ever.

No TV screens, no in-flight radio and nothing to read if you've read the in-flight magazine in the last 3 months.

The stewardesses seem stressed out and certainly didn't smile once on any of the 4 flights that I took, except when we landed probably due to relief.

You are constantly being badgered to buy things, it's never ending. Drinks, food, perfumes, toys, scratch cards and so on. I'm surprised they don't play Bingo to make more money.

The seats are way too small, you simply have no room between you and the person sat next to you. You have no leg room and the seats don't even recline. Surviving a long haul flight can be a real challenge under these conditions.

Once you finaly arrive you leave that plane sweaty, wrinkled and stiff as a board.

I'm very nervous when it comes to flying so it's important to me that the take off and landing are as smooth as possible. Flying with Ryanair actually brought back my absolute fear of flying and I dread the time when I have to do it again.

On 2 of the 4 connecting flights that I took with Ryanair one of the engines made a very loud noise that I had never heard before. It sounded to me like one of the rotor blades was hitting the casing in which it was housed. I alerted the stewardess of my concern but she brushed it off as normal. When I asked her why the other engine was not making that scary sound she just walked away with a fake smile on her face.

The pilots seem very young and inexperienced too. I'm not joking, one of them looked about 20 years old and had obviously just started flying. I thought it took many many years to become a fully fledged airline pilot, Ryanair must be different.

Every landing of the 4 flights was bad and I mean really, really bad. The first one seemed like the pilot was having trouble lining up the aircraft with the runway. It was good weather so crosswinds couldn't be blamed. He was also coming in way too fast and the wheels didn't touch the runway until we were halfway down it. We smashed into the tarmac and then he had to apply full reverse thrust and hit the brakes very hard, the plane swerved left and right. I honestly thought my time was up.

Apparently it is usual for passengers to give a round of applause on each landing with Ryanair as they are famous for bad landings.

The number one thing you must think about is what time you fly at, both to your destination and departing from your destination to fly back home. Why? Because flying at the wrong times can lose you 1 or 2 days of your holiday. How? Because flying to your destination in the early hours of the morning means you will arrive so tired that you will not have the energy to enjoy your first day on holiday and if you do manage to stay awake for your first night then you will most probably miss most of the next day by sleeping late or going to bed early the next night. The same is true on your return. If your return flight is in the early hours of the morning then you simply won't have the time to enjoy your last night out at your favourite bar.

Think about it. How much are you really saving by booking a cheap flight? Is this saving so much that it's worth losing one or two days of your holiday? Is it worth 1 or 2 sleepless nights?

Not forgetting you get no food, drinks or in-flight entertainment included in the price.

The planes are basic and cramped.

The pilots are inexperienced.

The flight attendants are underpaid and miserable.

Would I ever fly with Ryanair again? Absolutely no way. I would rather walk! I mean it! If I had to pay 3 or 4 times the price so I didn't have to fly with them it would be worth every penny and I also prefer to fly in the middle of the day when everything is open too.

 I would love to hear your stories about nightmare flights you may have had with budget airlines.

So please share your opinions with everyone here and leave a comment.