Should You Travel RyanAir? An Honest Review!
- Helen
- Oct 22, 2018
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 16, 2019
RyanAir is the Irish budget airline offering cheap flights covering Ireland, the UK, Europe and parts of the USA and South America.
As a budget airline, RyanAir is often given a bad press. Does the reality of flying RyanAir meet the poor reviews it gets or should you travel RyanAir and take advantage of their low costs?
My recent travels have taken me to destinations well served by RyanAir. When considering who to fly with when first booking I was hesitant about using the airline.
Would I be facing long delays, poor service, lost luggage or other general travel misery?
Or, are RyanAir victims of poor Press and in reality not as bad as reports would have us believe?
This is my honest review of RyanAir, following several flights with them... Please note I am not affiliated with the airline in any way!
COSTS-
If budget prices are what you are looking for then RyanAir can certainly deliver. Travelling to both Cork and France - returns for each cost me less than £40-50 (45 - 56 euros).
Considering the costs of short train or bus journeys in the UK now, these prices are extremely good.
In fact travelling to and from the airport (across London) cost nearly as much!
As with all airlines, to take advantage of the best prices, it will pay to book as early as you can. Each flight has an allocated number of seats released at a lower price and the prices will rise as the tickets sell.
BOOKING EXPERIENCE -
My experience of booking with RyanAir was also favourable.
Their website is easy to use and provides straight-forward drop down menus of airports you can travel from, which once selected will then show destinations available from that place of origin.
The booking website has the option of entering precise travel dates or of searching the entire month. This has the advantage, if your dates can be flexible, of selecting a date in the month on which cheaper fares are still available.
When making a booking, the 'extras' available on top of the basic ticket price are displayed and offered, yet do not feel pushy.
Paying is also an easy process.
Once a booking is made, it cannot be cancelled, but flights can be rearranged to another date online up to 2.5 hours before booked departure time. A fee will be incurred for this but this is not astronomical!
RyanAir also offer an app through which flights can be searched and booked. This is easy to use and through the app you can also download your e-boarding card which means you do not have to print and remember a hard copy!
BAGGAGE -
To take advantage of the lowest ticket prices on RyanAir you will be limited to the amount of baggage you can travel with.
Basic tickets are offered with an allowance of one 'cabin size' bag (such as a small case) and one small handbag (small enough to fit under the seat in front).
For those with basic tickets, the cabin sized bag will be taken from you at the boarding gate, tagged and put in the plane hold, for collection at the destination. This can be avoided by the purchase of a 'priority' ticket - usually an extra £4-6 / 6 Euros***
With a priority ticket you can take both items of luggage on board and store the larger bag in the overhead locker. If you are in a hurry at your destination then this might be a worthwhile cost!
To travel with more luggage than this will incur check in baggage charges which per flight start at £20 / 30 Euros if paid for at the time you originally book.
DELAYS -
RyanAir enjoys marketing itself as an airline that is 'on time' more than most other airlines. They claim that up to 90% of their flights land on or ahead of schedule.
I am sure there are many whose experiences with the airline will dispute these claims!
My experiences?
On my recent travels with the airline I cannot complain that my experiences in terms of punctuality were dire.
Travelling out to Cork, the flight was delayed by approximately 45 minutes in leaving Stansted. RyanAir were very quick to point the finger of blame for this
delay to the ground staff at the airport!
Flying to France, the aircraft that I was due to fly on was delayed in arriving at the airport. This resulted in a very hasty turnaround of disembarking arriving passengers before rushing my fellow passengers and myself on board. Again, this did cause a small delay.
Otherwise, the flights have been to time.
On a couple of occasions, the flights even landed slightly ahead of schedule.
FOOD / DRINK -
As with most short haul flights today, particularly budget flights, complimentary drinks or snacks are a thing of the past.
RyanAir offer an on-board snacks 'menu' and drinks choice but at a premium price.
If travelling short haul and you want to avoid paying on-board prices for food and drink then it is worth taking these with you in your hand luggage or waiting until you reach your destination.
There is nothing to stop you snacking on your own 'picnic' though on board and the staff will even take away your rubbish!
Of course, taking fluid items any larger than 100ml through security at airports now is impossible. However, it might still be better value, if you want a drink on the flight, to purchase this at the airport departure point, rather than from RyanAir during the flight.
STAFF / CUSTOMER SERVICE -
Perhaps I have been lucky, but in my experiences with RyanAir I have not had any issues with their staff or their general customer service (to date!).
The staff I have encountered have all been friendly, helpful and chatty.
The cabin crew face long days of turn-around flights with little (often no) break between landing and the next take off and to stay upbeat cannot always be easy!
So far, my experiences with customer services have been limited but when I have been looking for answers to queries I have had about my bookings, the answers were easy to come by and favourable.
On the flights I took where delays did occur, RyanAir did offer regular announcements and updates; even begrudging apologies!
EXTRAS - CAR PARKING & HOTELS -
As well as offering flights through their website, RyanAir also offer a range of 'extras'. These include such things as airport car parking, hotels, car hire and airport transfers.
Having taken advantage of some of these offers I have been pleasantly surprised.
For one recent trip I needed to drive to Stansted Airport and leave my car at the airport car park.
I searched for parking prices through various websites and providers. Using RyanAir for this service actually worked out with the best deal in terms of the parking cost and the website automatically linked my travel dates to the dates and times of the car parking I would need.
Booking this was simple and hassle-free.
When travelling to Cork, I stayed the first night in a local hotel, before my house-sit commenced the following day. Once again, web based searches did not offer any better deals than were found through RyanAir's own website for Cork's Airport hotel.
The advantage of being able to book through one website and automatically link your travel dates and destinations at some of the best online prices is certainly convenient!
CONCLUSION
By no stretch am I a veteran or very frequent flyer of RyanAir. I am sure that many of you will have had other experiences with the airline.
On the whole, though, my experiences have (so far) been good. I have been pleasantly surprised by the airline overall and the service received (particularly for the low prices paid).
It can be human nature to only report 'bad news' and we often don't hear the good. RyanAir might be victim to this in the Press where we hear regular 'horror stories' of flying with Ireland's budget airline.
What are your experiences with RyanAir - good or bad? Indifferent?
Let me know in the comments below!
***1st November 2018 - RyanAir have now updated their baggage policy so that only customers with a Priority pass (who therefore pay the extra £6 / 6 Euro) can take a cabin size bag on the flight without using the hold.
RyanAir account for this change in policy as being to speed up the boarding process.
**To make my travels possible and affordable I do so through international house-sitting, using both Trusted Housesitters and Kiwi Housesitters**
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