8645 Ryanair Price Hike!!!

I wonder if raising the checked baggage prices will ever actually stop people taking hold baggage. It's a bit like the govt. trying to stop smoking by putting huge taxes on each packet of fags - people still buy 'em cos they "need" them, and the govt rakes in huge cash windfalls while polishing its halo. If they ever succeeded in taxing all the smokers out of existance, there'd be a fine old budget deficit (ok, so NHS costs would reduce, but I remain to be convinced that the erstwhile smokers won't just start dying of other diseases instead of lung cancer).

Anyway, if Ryanair do manage to price hold baggage into oblivion, do you think they'll eventually remove the hold stowage area entirely to make room for a new "steerage class" ticket below decks ... standing room only, bring your own thermal undies?

How can you check in on line when some of the airports aren't geared up for it either. Seems unfair they can levy this charge even where it is impossible to check in on line.

Not just "some airports" ... "some countries". In the Ryanair travel questions page, Airport & online check in section, under "which passengers do not qualifty to use online check in", one of the groups listed is "passengers travelling from Italy to the UK", and this group isn't asterisked - so no eligiblity to claim a refund. I'm sure that previously there was a clause saying that if the airport didn't support online check in then you could still check in at the desk for free - but no sign of that now, so I may have dreamed it or they've removed it.

A REFUND???!!!! From RYANAIR!!!!! Let me know if/when anyone manages this one!
Since I last booked a flight in November, there is an increased price for paying by debit card. Are they now charging you for whatever means you use to pay? Or are we being not-so-subtly encouraged to get 'Ryanair Cards'? : (

As I have posted on other thread it is possible to do online checkin from some Italian airports these are listed on the website.

silly me - I looked in Ryanair's "travel questions" section, which has a specific topic on online check in, and which states that online check in can't be done from ANY Italian airport.

I've now found that the online check in page itself actually has a list of exceptions (as Rod advised) which DO allow online check in. FYI, these are currently: Pisa, Alghero, Rome Ciampino, Milan Bergamo, Genoa and Verona Brescia.

I took Rod's advice and booked single flights so that I could at least check-in on-line at Stansted, even if not at Ancona.
Last night the price of the flight I was looking at was £6.99, this morning when I checked it was £34.99.... I then checked all the flights in a 12 day period, both ways, and when I got to THE flight it had changed again to £9.99. They had also added a second flight on 21st March; a second flight?? And yes, the charges for paying have increased.

Annie.

BA and Alitalia do perfectly good flights out of Fiumicino to Heathrow. What is your beef?

[quote=MargaretM;81144]How can you check in on line when some of the airports aren't geared up for it either. Seems unfair they can levy this charge even where it is impossible to check in on line.[/quote]

Well in fact Margaret you can claim the checkin fee back if the airport you use isn't one that offers it online. Sneaky Ryanair ..... !!!

[quote=Charles Phillips;81198]BA and Alitalia do perfectly good flights out of Fiumicino to Heathrow. What is your beef?[/quote]

You should remember that it's inconvenient and expensive (in both cost and time) for many British people to use Heathrow. The world doesn't in fact revolve around London, much as some Londoners may lke to imagine it does!

Oh, and Heathrow is generally a pain to be in/transit, and the public transport that serves it is either ludicrously expensive or horrible/unreliable to use (or both).

the regional airports Ryanair has helped promote are the antidote to all that: they are easier to get to for those who use them; require less time to transit; avoid the need for connectiong flights; and often these days are better designed for the type of use they get than the huge international behemoths like heathrow.

Passengers who have purchased online check-in that subsequently do not qualify for the service will be offered priority boarding onto the aircraft. All Online Check-in/Priority Boarding fees are non refundable.

The above is tucked in at the bottom of the on-line check in terms and conditions. So you can't get a refund but will be 'promoted' to priority boarding!

Price change - I've been trying to do my add on sums. Disregarding tax, when I come to book I have to add per flight £6 for hold bag, £3 to check in at the airport and at least £1 to pay for all the extras and the flights (debit card). So that is a total of £10 per flight per person. However if I can struggle with a big bag and block the isle and take up most of the overhead locker, it will only cost me a £1 extra BUT I am sure to find overhead locker space as I will be priority boarded. Start measuring the bags!!

Has anyone ever had their carry-on baggage weighed??

An interesting piece of information I gleaned from a ryanair ground staff member on our last flight is that they are only supposed to sell 60 proirity boarding permits. What she did not know was if that was on top of on-line check-ins OR as well as. Anyone throw any light on that?? :wideeyed:

Since online check in was introduced we have had our carry on baggage weighed several times at Stansted but this is done by airport security and not by Ryanair staff.

Thanks for this Rod. The only time we have had ours weighed was at Coventry flying with Thomson but they have a different baggage policy - 25kgs all in. At East Midlands and Doncaster there is no such check and I do not think they have the facility to do it. Never had it weighed at Pisa. What is the NON RYANAIR limit as if it is not ryanair staff, they are surely not enforcing the ryanair policy. For example easyjet say as long as you can lift it into the locker, you can carry it on.

[quote=coppicer;81209] What is the NON RYANAIR limit as if it is not ryanair staff, they are surely not enforcing the ryanair policy. .[/quote]

Yes they are! Like Rod, at Stansted we have had our carry on lugage weighed by the airport security staff and when it was over the 10kg limit they wrote the weight on our boarding pass and would not let us through until we had reduced it to less than the 10kg - they did have scales at the ready so it was easy for them to check. We just re-distributed everything and tried again without a problem, after the x-ray bit, we repacked and put everything back to its original place. So all a bit of a time wasting exercise but rules are rules! The stupid thing is the security staff who sent us back, watched as we redistributed the weight!

They are posting that they are shutting the website to new bookings early February for major system upgrade which may co-incide with their commitment last year to follow OFTs requirement to show inclusive prices earlier in their booking process.

I suppose at the end of the day oil prices have risen, Ryanair remains locked into their [I]no fuel supplements ever [/I]so they've got to find the extra money from somewhere.

It seems Ryanair continue to attract two types of passengers, the inexperienced who fly and sometimes feel a bit stung by unexpected expenses and the savvy who either comply with the rules (however arcane - how does [I]no pooling of luggage [/I]add to your costs?) or walk into the deal with eyes wide open. Nothing here has changed - Ryanair continue to promote fares at prices that many will never end up paying and it's been that way for years.

Appreciate that Peter Sherrard says they'll continue increasing the charges until they get 50% of people to convert so using penalty pricing to drive customer behaviour. At this moment in time UK banks are in court because the OFT says it's only fair for them to [B]charge what it costs them [/B]to handle customers who overdraw their accounts and they must in interest of fairness reveal their actual unit costs.

Strikes me eventually Ryanair will either reach a stage where people look more carefully at other airline options before automatically choosing Ryanair or it'll be a matter of time before another OFT complaint is raised.

Surely Ryanair wouldn't want to reveal its real unit costs for things like credit card handling, check in desks, the 911 insurance levy etc. Even my local little organic veg delivery man apparently seems to have negotiated himself a better VISA handling charge deal that the businessmen at Ryanair :laughs:

I also almost always get my carry on bags weighed at Stanstead (probably because I always take as much stuff over as I can and our carry on bags are always just under the maximum weight). Last year I complained to the man at the security gate that I had watched a number of people with similar sized bags that were not weighed, thinking that they weighed only every 20 or so bags. He told me that they are under instructions to keep a particular eye on and weigh all Ryanair passengers bags that look oversized. I don't know if this is correct but it wouldn't surprise me.

Once Michael O'leary has exhausted his current tax on checking in and luggage, no doubt he will start charging a tax for carry on bags, then for wearing coats, then for wearing boots instead of shoes, then for wearing make up or any other excuse to add profit to his company....................... Still, I need Ryanair more than they need me but I wish someone else would start up on the same routes as Ryanair in Italy and give him some competition. Don't get me wrong, he is a business man and does a good job as a business man, but what gets on my nerves is how he continues to harp on about government tax on air travel and there he is doing exactly the same thing, which brings me to another point (I'm on my high horse and on a roll now) why do people often say that they got a cheap flight to this place or that place for 1p or £1.00 or whatever. The price of the ticket is what we pay as a full price including all taxes. We don't say we bought a cheap toothpaste in Tesco for 75p but actually, the price we paid was £1.00 including tax.........I know I'm a hypocrite, I still use them, I'm just in a moaning mood.

Quote from Biagio's post......'Still, I need Ryanair more than they need me but I wish someone else would start up on the same routes as Ryanair in Italy and give him some competition. Don't get me wrong, he is a business man and does a good job as a business man, but what gets on my nerves is how he continues to harp on about government tax on air travel and there he is doing exactly the same thing, which brings me to another point (I'm on my high horse and on a roll now) why do people often say that they got a cheap flight to this place or that place for 1p or £1.00 or whatever. The price of the ticket is what we pay as a full price including all taxes. We don't say we bought a cheap toothpaste in Tesco for 75p but actually, the price we paid was £1.00 including tax.........I know I'm a hypocrite, I still use them, I'm just in a moaning mood....'End quote.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Biagio, you made me laugh when I read this.

Annie.

Ditto anniet2. Summed up my feelings exactly Biagio.
Meh eh.
m

I do agree that it is annoying that the pricing isn't straightforward, but this is the budget option, so although all of these things do add up - it is still miles cheaper than BA or Alitalia.

On the otherhand, I flew this weekend and the airstewards were struggling to find space in the overhead lockers for all of the luggage that people had bought onto the plane. It was all accommodated in the end but it does cause extra delays.

Because I am so stingy, I flew this weekend with a toddler and two bags of hand luggage!! (for €40 return for both of us). But if it wasn't for these cheap flights I wouldn't be able to get home so often to see my family.

[quote=Charles Phillips;81198]BA and Alitalia do perfectly good flights out of Fiumicino to Heathrow. What is your beef?[/quote]

err.........Heathrow and BA?

We flew to Pisa with BA over Christmas/New Year (only because Ryanair have stopped their Winter flights from Bournemouth) and it was a complete shambles. Return flight cancelled 24 hours before departure, inflight catering atrocious, check in arrangements at Pisa a fiasco (yes, they did eventually offer us seats back!) and customer service non existent. You certainly do get what you pay for and the only advantage with BA over a budget airline on this occasion, was the ability to book seat online and avoid the tarmac stampede.

Tony and Helen

If two 1p flights become £30 or £40 return it's still really cheap. I paid £8 return on the bus in England to go 20 miles. It also took me ages to work out Midland Mainline's website and predict when cheap fares to London were likely to pop up. National Express used to (may still) have a completely random way of giving you a cheap fare - you dont know until you're booking if they've decided you're the lucky one. What 's annoying is how other cheap flight operators copy Ryanair and start charging for checked luggage (eg Jet2). It means it takes ages to work out which flight is cheaper in the end. Also Jet 2 have a wierd shape for their hand luggage and we have been made to check in a normal hand luggage size case on wheels as it wouldn't fit in their basket. 10 kilos is heavy to cart about the airport if it's not on wheels and I have resorted to buying a child's rucksack on wheels, complete with pink elephant design, as it was all I could find. We can never understand though why other people seem to be able to take in comparatively enormous hand luggage onto the same flight! Everything everywhere seems to depend on the whims of the day/person/whether there's an R in the month but it can be expensive if you get it wrong . Ryanair is not the only one trying to make money by devious means. Also the taxes for Ryanair seem to be a lot cheaper than some of the airlines (eg Thomsonfly). (Actually I love the challenge of these websites! )
ciao
pam

Ps I'm really annoyed as messing about on this forum this morning has made me forget to listen to Desert Island Discs!
pam

[quote=alma;81383]Ps I'm really annoyed as messing about on this forum this morning has made me forget to listen to Desert Island Discs!
pam[/quote]

Can't you listen to it online for up to 7 days after it is broadcast?

Never seem to get round to it. By the way, how do people manage with just hand luggage? I've always had problems fitting my hand luggage into my hand luggage never mind anything extra!
pam

[quote=alma;81380]It means it takes ages to work out which flight is cheaper in the end. [/quote]

Oh, the joy of it all! Sometimes, I lose the will to live........

Helen

Flew Ryanair Lemezia - Bergamot last week their policy in charging for hold baggage resulted in so much hand baggage that most of it had to be taken by the cabin crew and put in hold - mad or what????

That is so funny! Perhaps everyone should take the maximum possible hand luggage until they are begging us to take hold luggage and even offering a reduction for the inconvenience it causes us.
ciao
pam

Not wanting to go off at a tangent.... but at least it fits the gist that Ryanair and airport staff generally can be pretty insensitive.

I came back to Pisa last week from Stansted (aka Little Poland). In front of me at check in was an Italian lady and what I overheard astounded me in terms of how "jobsworth" and uncaring people can be. The lady (who was not a flying passenger) was trying to sort wheelchair assistance to the plane for her mother who had taken a fall a few days back and damaged several vertibrae. Mamma was strapped up in something that resembled a bullet proof vest and was hardly able to walk. Her daughter had tried repeatedly to pre book the wheel chair service by phoning the Ryanair phoneline - which over the course of 2/3 days had not accepted her call. She was looked in the eye by the check in person and told that consequently no help would be made available because no prior booking had been made..

I decided this was too much and tried to reason and also took the cause up with the airport staff - each blamed each other, but the long and the short was that noone would help the passenger who could barely walk beyond customs. At Stansted it's only a walk of about a mile let's face it.

By this time I had volunteered to be her "guardian" and ended up having a lovely trip with my new companion - at Pisa we were met by 3 red cross staff who smiled and were generally lovely.

I know that generalising can be dangerous (and it's true to say we've had our share of "bad Italian days" too), but the experience at Stansted served to remind me of many of the reasons why I chose to live in Italy rather than England.

If anyone saw a "mamma down" here in Italy, the world would stop for them and there seems to be broad recognition that "what goes around, comes around" as opposed to "not my problem, the computer says no and what's in it for me."

There was another thread about "who's staying" - well that would be me then too.

End of rant.

Chris
[url=http://www.olivopiegato.com]Tuscany Bed and Breakfast - L'Olivo Piegato, The Crooked Olive[/url]

I keep meaning to write a grovelling letter to Easyjet, in the hopes they might think about flights into Pescara Airport, but maybe someone at Ryanair is doing a deal to beat off any competition for routes?

We found Le Marche because it was too expensive last easter to go to London by train for the weekend (around £150 for four of us versus £73 Ryanair Liverpool to Ancona with taxes and two bags). Glad we did as we loved it, went back in June & bought a house to renovate. Been back twice since and have just booked for Easter. But I wish they'd bring back the Liverpool Ancona service (or Pescara)

With regards to wheel chair assistance- the problem is it isn't the airline that provide it- it is the airport. I know this as my dad is in a wheel chair and always books wheelchair assistance- this hasn't stopped him & my aged mother (who will kill me if she reads this) from being stranded without assistance at both Rome Ciampino & East Midlands. East Midlands in fact is particularly bad for this. The person travelling to Pisa was lucky though that Ryanair let them on the plane as I saw them refuse take take someone in a wheel chair at Ancona cos they hadn't booked assistance. On another tangent which airport do you reckon has the rudest & most jobsworthey Ryanair staff- my vote is Liverpool- the only good thing about them getting rid of the Ancona- Liverpool route is that i don't have to go to that airport any more!

Hi gang, long time no post but sadly no Italian plans at present (USA at Christmas, very snowy thanks, and Cote d'Azur for June) so a little bit off post, but we booked flights this week Manchester - Marseilles with Ryanair, £5.99 out and £14.99 back... bottom line for four of us was a shade under £400... however, with Easyjet it would have been just under £600, and Air France over £800, so despite adding adding adding it is still thebest deal around, and in our experience they do get you there on schedule.

What's going on??? Last time I flew I had hold luggage and when I went to pay for it I was also charged £2 sneakily on top for not checking in online. As far as I can see you cannot check in online if you have hold luggage and therefore I'm owed £2.

I've just checked in online for my next flight as a precaution but will probably be carrying hold luggage.

Apparently Ryanair fills the hold with freight and that apparently is a very profitable part of their business. Interestingly Ryanair succeeds without the CUSTOMER BEING KING! They came to Perugia and we are grateful for 3 flights a week leaving Stansted bleary eyed at dawn!

[QUOTE=turtle;81828] and therefore I'm owed £2.
QUOTE]

Sadly not! Even if you book hold luggage on line at the time of purchasing the ticket you pay per bag and in addition for the 'pleasure' of checking in at the airport - even though there is no option as with hold luggage you cannot check in online! I can't remember how much each rate is now as they have been increased since we made our latest booking but even then we paid more for our bags than for our seats! Must learn how to pack two weeks worth of clothing etc into my handbag.

I didn't book the hold luggage online nor did I do web checkin online. It was an after thought.. I'm not questioning the fee for the hold luggage but rather the checkin fee on top which should not have to be paid and yes they owe me at least a reason for asking for an additional £2..

when RA originally introduced the online check-in, it was as a free add-on, available to those with hand baggage only who were travelling to from supported airports. From their perspective it encouraged us all to travel with hand baggage only in return for bypassing the checking queues. That is a key aim of theirs as it minimises loading and lets them hit the 30 minute turnaround time they need to minimise airport charges & make the business model profitable.

Although convenient to bypass check in queues, IIRC you got dumped at the 'back of the queue' in terms of boarding sequence number - so, on the odd occasions that the staff at the boarding gate actually bothered to board the plane by sequence #, it was a bit of a pain.

Since then they've also introduced hold baggage charges, and then optional (but chargeable) priority boarding ... plus several price hikes in the charges themselves.

They've now modified the online check-in so that instead of beign presented as an optional, free add-on for those travelling light, it is now the default - i.e. you don't pay for checking in that way. If, for any reason - other than the few specific ones that they list on their website - you now use a check in desk, you now have to pay, regardless of whatever type of baggage you carry.

RA are saying that it costs them to provide the bum on the seat behind the desk, and that they will therefore charge you accordingly for use of the facility. The type of luggage you choose to take with you, and the airport's ability to support online checkin doesn't matter (to RA) - a manual check in is now viewed as a cost item for which they'll bill you regardless unless you fit into the list of exceptions they've published.

It's annoying, but entirely consistent with their policy of charging for every aspect of the flight which costs them either money or time. They do have to pay the airport for the check in desks which are provided, and the staff which (wo)man them - I don't think these are actually RA staff. So they are saying - we'd rather not have any checkin desks, and we'd rather you all just took hand baggage. If you use check in desks for any reason, we'll recoup our costs to the airport by charging you a fee for the service.

Now, whether RA are just recouping costs or turning this into a profit centre is another issue ... and what incentive airposts which DON'T currently support online checkin have to pay for it's introduction (only to lose revenue from RA if it pays les for checkin desk facilities) is yet another :-((((

Very full explanation Pigro. My shorter version would be - 'If you have a hold bag you have to go to the desk and pay for the priviledge - both for the desk and the bag' It costs you to queue twice rather than once which is free. :veryconfused: (or queue three times if you have not prebooked it)

ha! problem is, if I just say what I mean in one user friendly sentence, I have to go back to work immediately afterwards. Which bores me as much as my long rambles bore everyone else. So, unless you all chip in and buy me an annuity which I can retire on today, you're stuck with me meantime. Blame my employers :-)

What - still on lunch Pigro - this is not Italy!!! :laughs:

nope - if I was having an italian style lunch, by now I'd be lying sozzled with my head resting gently in my gelato artigianale, unable/uninterested in typing and looking forward to a nice wee siesta.

I *should* be working right now; my posts here are a diversionary tactic to stave off the inevitible...

Actually, I sometimes wonder how many others are abusing their employers time & bandwidth in this terrible manner? Bet I'm not the only slacker in town!

I am very lucky and admit it. I am salaried (part time), work from home and as long as I do my work nobody bothers when and where I do it - just leave me to get on. I have even got them to pay for internet connection in Italy so I can spend more time out there :winki:

Congrat's on your good fortune! That setup's a bit of a medium term pipe dream of mine too - kind of a halfway house towards full retirement in my case (if I can swing it!).

ps. retired - or literally 'pensioner' - in Italian is "In pensione". That doesn't work as well as it does in Spanish ... where pensioner is "Jubilato", and being a pensioner is quite literally "jubilation" ... couldn't agree more, as long as you have some funds to enjoy it, of course :-)