Ryanair: flights across the atlantic for $13? Ehh…
Photo by u07ch
There has been a lot of buzz in the travel community over the last week concerning European discount carrier Ryanair announcing that they plan to offer dirt-cheap transatlantic flights from London Stansted and Dublin to American cities like New York and Boston for as little as $13 each way before taxes. Sounds good, right? Well…
Meet Ryanair
Ryanair, of course, is the Dublin-based airline that has become the golden standard for the ultra low-cost carrier industry. The company, which offers short-haul point-to-point flights between a significant number of European cities, often makes the news for advertising (legitimate) dirt-cheap fares for one-way travel. How do they offer such low fares? A combination of:
- Charging fees for *everything* - Want to check any bags? Want to check-in at the airport rather than online? Want to talk to someone on the phone? Want to have a drink onboard? Want to get on the plane before most people? All of it will cost you extra — and these fees are not cheap.
- Using remote airports — Landing at a big airport like London Heathrow costs serious money, so Ryanair makes use of nearby airports that often stretch the definition of a destination. This can prove problematic especially as many of these remote airports don’t enjoy the same public transportation that the more significant airports get.
- Acting Smart — You have to give them credit — they know how to save a penny. Ryanair clearly does not consider themselves in the business of public relations and customer service — they are an airline, and they will work to get you from point-to-point. It might not be fun, and you might feel like you’re treated like cattle, but it will often be at only an incredibly low price.
Frustrated? You’re Playing Their Game
A lot of people have expressed their frustrations online about problems with Ryanair. These seem to fall in to two categories.
The first concerns Ryanair’s handling of things like cancellations — when things go right, it can be a great experience, but when things go wrong, expect them to go very wrong. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Ryanair runs full planes on routes that they may only run every other day. When a cancellation occurs, it may take a while (days, even) for them to get you to the destination. The fact that Ryanair customer representatives have a reputation for disappearing when cancellations occur doesn’t help.
The second has to do with frustrations concerning the way that Ryanair quickly becomes more expensive than people first anticipate. Many people don’t take the time — and it does take time, unfortunately — to figure out the rules and restrictions when flying Ryanair. Over at Less Than A Shoestring — which is a great resource for budget travel in Europe — their response to this complaint pretty much sums it up:
In many respects, dealing with low-cost carriers such as Ryanair is like playing a game. In order to play well, you need to know the rules (how much luggage you can carry on, each additional checked bag costs extra, you can’t check-in online if you’re not an EU citizen or you’ll be denied boarding, etc.). Most complaints about the airline come from people who don’t know the rules. So yes, you can be angry that RyanAir’s rules are different from everyone else’s, but you’re not going to get a whole lot of sympathy from me if you don’t know or follow the rules of the game. RyanAir makes a ton of money off of the folks who don’t know the rules.
Coming To America — Potential Reality
So what does this all mean for Ryanair coming to America? If it is possible to play their game in Europe, can the same rules be applied transatlantic?
Remember that the $13 offer is one-way and before taxes and fees — and those taxes and fees are likely to add up. The WalletPop blog has a great post on how a transatlantic flight on Ryanair could really start to add up, highlighting also that many of the the things that make Ryanair bearable in Europe won’t hold transatlantic.
For example, it is much easier to travel with a (very light) carry-on bag when you are flying between European cities than when you’re making a trip across at the Atlantic. Not only might you need to check a bag, but it might need to be a heavy bag, which will cost you even more, of course. It is also much easier to tolerate an unfriendly environment for an hour or two than for a much longer transatlantic flight.
Also, when I heard the news, I immediately thought of the “American RyanAir experiment” — aka Skybus, the airline that tried and failed to import the Ryanair style to America. Skybus charged for everything and used (often very) remote airports to save on fees. It just didn’t click with American travelers.
Of course, things have changed quite a bit since Skybus went bankrupt — most of the airlines, for example, now charge to check bags. Does this make America more conducive to the Ryanair style? Perhaps. I’d like to think that customer service still means something, but I’m not kidding myself.
Safety Concerns?
Are you less safe on an airline that explicitly states its primary goal is to operate as cheaply as possible? Ryanair would certainly tell you they are as safe or safer than any other airline — and their record isn’t bad. But it is hard to shake the idea that cost cutting can’t be good for safety.
It also is not comforting to hear about (via the great Upgrade: Travel Better blog) undercover investigations exposing disquieting Ryanair training practices. Ryanair, it should be noted, vehemently contested the expose, and even posted extensive back-and-forth between the airline and the news channel. Net result? I’ll let you make your own opinion.
Sit and Wait
Now we get to wait and see. As the Airfarewatchdog blog points out, Ryanair is still in the planning processes of both acquiring the necessary aircraft and dealing with the regulatory requirements, neither of which are quicksteps nor are they guaranteed successes — they are saying at least a year at the earliest. Ryanair also hasn’t had the best financial news lately, so a lot could happen in the next year and a half.
But if Ryanair does come to America, it could dramatically change the game. For those willing to play Ryanair’s game, cheap and accessible travel across the Atlantic Ocean may become a reality. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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