$200 round trip to the US

Ryanair...hum...we recently had the RyanAir Experience when we flew home to Leeds from Gdansk.  I was expecting the worst due to all I'd heard, but the flight wasn't that bad except DH being sat next to an extremely neurotic guy.  

They are one of those who have all kinds of extra fees added on to their 'low price' quote - it never ends up being the price you end up paying.  And you do have to pay for each checked bag - you don't get a free checked bag (much like other 'low cost' airlines I think) like you do with the major international long-haul carriers.

I can't see flying them long-haul to be perfectly honest, but it was okay for a regional European flight sort of on the cheap.  *Might* be okay on a short-ish flight to the US - like maybe 5 hours +- to NYC & where you don't care to take much luggage (obviously).

And for people who've not flown Ryanair before, the one carryon bag is strictly ONE carryon bag with them - you don't also get to carry on a personal item (handbag, small backpack, laptop case, camera case, tote bag, etc) as well, like you would with *most* other airlines.  And they really enforce this too. So your personal item has to fit inside your carryon bag (or be your sole carryon bag) - so if you're packing much, you *will* pay for a checked bag.  Hubs & I each had our carryon (to the specified size & weight) for our trip back from Gdansk recently, and only needed to check one bag between us -- but we weren't bringing back any major shopping or stuff (like we would from the US).  We had been on an extended trip so we weren't able to only limit to the carryon each.  It made me a bit sad, however, as I knew I couldn't do much/any holiday 'stuff to bring back' shopping (Goldwasser...mmmm) as we had no space (or weight allowance) left to bring anything back.  

That 'priority boarding' is a bit of a crapshoot on some flights - we had heard this before.  If a majority of the people on a particular flight elect to pay for 'priority boarding' - then there really isn't any priority boarding if you're all getting in the 'priority boarding' line so that could end up being a waste of money.  I think you need to consider the destination & typical profile of who might be going there to gauge if you would actually end up benefiting from it.  On our flight, we didn't go for it & neither did the majority of others who flew on that one - so might have been a benefit there.

We did pay to reserve specific seats - husband was reluctant to do this because we once did on Jet2 & didn't end up getting any of the seats we had reserved going or coming home. I complained to Jet2 about it - they referred me to their fine print T&C where it says even if you pay to reserve a seat, it's not guaranteed, so essentially they could just be taking extra money off you for nothing at all. We wondered if it would be like that too with Ryanair - but in fact, they were great about honouring the 'paid' reserved seats, even automatically herding people out of those seats who had not reserved them - so we were happy about that as we got into our assigned seats without hassle.

If you don't reserve a seat, then it's Cattle Call Airlines (moo moo moo) - much like Southwest Airlines in the US...everyone running & jostling about & cutting in the queue to get to the airplane first for better pick of 'find a seat & sit down!'.  I don't see how hard can it freaking be to assign seats to everyone (on the boarding pass) - like most other airlines do as a matter of course, but sure that would 'rob' Ryanair of the opportunity to squeeze more money out of you for the flight.

That's my book & I'm sticking to it!  

Anyone who really thinks there are cheap flights ought to listen to Fascinating Aida ....

FASCINATING AIDA - Cheap Flights

It's a hoot, and not that far from reality! Look at a 'regular' ticket on USAirways or any other main carrier, and the lines with the cost of the flights, then look at the total with all the fees and taxes. They may advertise that the flight is $200, but the ticket price will be far more.

About right, Vadio!  And there's another one that really winds me up - the extra charge just for the privilege of paying using your credit or debit card (not that there's any other alternative mind, nor should there need to be).  So I'm paying for the privilege of paying them!

Best just to stick to Yorkshire Airlines in future (apologies for this old chestnut but I cannot resist):

Yorkshire Airlines

Maybe one day I'll be able to afford the luxury of Alan Bennett Class...

I love that 'Yorkshire Airlines' joke. Saw it years ago, and it is still funny. Now 'shut up and belt up'......we're headed back to Leeds

I just steer clear of these airlines that don't have reserved seating, I'm not on a bus, I don't want to be fighting to get a seat together.
The other thing that annoys me is paying for even your first checked bag, my experience of that is you just get people taking the piss with what they take on as carry-on, particularly in the US, there's people trying to take on cases that aren't much smaller than mine.
I'd rather check a bag in and just take a small one on, hope everyone else does the same, and pay a bit more for it.
We are flying to Brussels next month for my birthday, 1 20kg case was £15 after that it really bumps up, so we've booked 1 case per couple for our flights.

The trouble with this Ryan Air trans-Atlantic deal is that on the surface it seems great but it's financial unsustainable, their aim will be to try to drive competitors out and then they'll be able to bump fares up.

Every ticket for the airlines should include the compensation package of the CEO's of the airlines. Right

Yes, absolutely, there's nothing wrong with this as it's a private company were talking about.

Off the subject but I just read somewhere that in GB they are talking about limiting the compensation of the CEO's. Something about the shareholders should be involved. That's good news to me.
Cheers

Why should this actually be the case? a private company can pay it's staff, managers, board and chief officers any amount it wants. What business is it of anyone else? If the government wades in and limits the amount a CEO can be paid when the company is successful, I can see those corporates structuring things so that their CEO's aren't based in the UK for instance. When it's a public company then yes, I agree on seeing what heads of publicly funded departments are being paid. I think it's totally ludicruous and insane that the head of manchester city council ( I think that's who it was!) was being paid a hell of a lot more than the prime minister. Which publicly funded idiots let that scenario happen? I think there was a list published which showed this sort of thing and who was being paid much more than the PM and it included quite a lot of people employed by the state. I'd like to see how long those people would last in the PM's job - not 10 minutes would be my guess.

With regards to the $200 round trip fare proposed by Ryanair, that would make things very cheap indeed, but I do question if it'd be sustainable. As things shake up in the UK economy over the next few years, this scenario might well happen, and if it does, it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out. There again, it might not happen!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Denis, did you read this? It is related to what you had written.

http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/21/12341233-bye-bye-american-and-other-brands-that-likely-will-be-gone-in-13?lite

Yes, absolutely, there's nothing wrong with this as it's a private company were talking about.

Why should this actually be the case? a private company can pay it's staff, managers, board and chief officers any amount it wants. What business is it of anyone else? If the government wades in and limits the amount a CEO can be paid when the company is successful, I can see those corporates structuring things so that their CEO's aren't based in the UK for instance.

The problem is that it has been statistically demonstrated that there is no link between boardroom pay and performance in the UK. Unless the government intervenes (the current idea being to improve the ability of shareholders to reject directors' pay packages) then no one company will dare drop pay unilaterally as their best staff will simply leave.

Hi,

I've no idea why it should be anyone but the private company's business and shareholders affairs about how much to pay it's directors and CEO's. Even when that is the case, recently with the economic upheaval in the UK, some shareholders within companies are bemoaning how much their ceo's get and the kicker is the company is doing spectacularly well!  A recent discussion about Diaggeo for instance, year on year growth and successes and the small print was their CEO got a small percentage of the profits. It just so happens the profits recently are large so his cut is similarly quite 'whopping' - it was agreed previously so why are some of the shareholders all grumpy? could it be jealousy!? - I know it's a higher level thing to say, but other countries actively encourage business successes and feel proud to have pushed further and made more money business wise - and not just the USA is where this happens. In the UK, there is still this sentiment of negativity to success and a public outcry of disdain to anyone/or business that's doing phenomenally well.
It's a very british thing to try and 'bring someone down publicly' be it business, politicians, celebrities and sports - which I think is a shame overall. Now if a private company is indeed under performing, share prices are falling/downward trend, then a good CEO would indeed be seen to be giving up the bonus and taking a pay cut etc, that does seem logical.

Cheers - i saw that link, and my view is that a substantial amount of the population in the USA and UK who previously spent money they didn't have on their credit cards are often ones who publicly deride companies in that report when they suffer from lacking demand and then seek to stay in some sort of business by selling themselves off. I know it's not 'just' the population to lay the blame at though, the banks and politicians are also to blame.

As I say, the next 3+ years in the UK will be very interesting and in the US, there will also be some seismic shifts potentially with various companies etc, however, the US will recover better, quicker and more consistently over time and the UK will most likely take a fair while longer even if the current Eurozone crisis wasn't happening. That Eurozone issue is going to push the UK further back for recovery times, but the future does look more unstable for those main nations who's economies are really wobbling (PIIGS)

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I've always thought the lack of seat assignments was a psychological ploy to get people on the plane faster. If you have your seat assignment, you are much more likely to faff a bit and grab a cup of coffee or the newspaper on the way to the gate. If you know it's first come first served, you will be there waiting. Ryanair do love their on time departures and I am always amused at the flight crew snarling "just sit in any seat" because no one really listens anyway. Despite numerous flights, R and I have always found seats together and I have never paid for priority boarding.

I would not do a long haul on Ryanair unless they offered reclining seats and a reasonable baggage policy. It's one thing to travel to Europe for the weekend with a carry on, but most folk don't do long haul flights for 2-3 days. Food wise, I am happy to provide my own if the price is right.

We have done Easyjet to Amman, Jordan, and it wasn't too bad. I think it was a 5+ hour flight and we had one checked bag between the two of us. It was still cheaper than the competition at the time.

I think it's a wait and see situation.

I've no idea why it should be anyone but the private company's business and shareholders affairs about how much to pay it's directors and CEO's.

The current problem is that the shareholders are pretty toothless when it comes to what the directors get paid. It's almost unheard of for them to vote against the recommendations of the remuneration committee, and those committees universally say that the directors have been doing an excellent job and deserve a pay rise - no matter how well the company is doing or how well it has been led. The net result is no distinction between success and failure.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/75e36fae-03e2-11e2-9675-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27NufioCv

Ryanair said it is confident of winning regulatory clearance for its bid for Aer Lingus after the submission of a “revolutionary” package of remedies to the European Commission to address competition concerns.

Reminds me of a line from the first episode of new series of The Thick Of It.

"I usually reserve this level of anger for when I fly Ryanair"!