RYANAIR review :  18 June 2009 : by John Herbert  (UK)

Another rip off alert; Ryanair are still using £1 = 1Euro for their inflight food and drink. The bank rate is now nearer £1.17 = 1 Euro. I flew Bristol - Beziers and back from £12 return and arrived ahead of schedule.

RYANAIR review :  17 June 2009 : by C Elbrow  (UK)

The new online service is discriminatory and unfair. I recently paid for a work colleague to travel to UK from Ireland booking the flight in the UK. He has no computer access and was charged £40 booking fee on arrival. I spoke to an incredibly rude check-in girl who had 'no time or interest' to the issues he faced - just wanted the money. The quicker this rude and unpleasant service goes bust the better! Have they never heard of customer service. These two customers will not be flying with them again.

RYANAIR review :  17 June 2009 : by A O'Donnell  (UK)

I have been flying from Liverpool to Barcelona Reus twice a month for the last 18 months but not anymore. It seems as if every month they come up with yet another scam to increase the cost. Do they really think people don't notice? The final straw is the new online check-in fee. £5 for online check-in, each person-each way with a fine of £40 for forgetting or being unable to check-in e.g. lost internet connection (happens often in the little spanish village I live). Why are they charging separately for check-in? It's not optional, you're not allowed on the plane without it. Check-in should be included in the initial flight price! And why are Ryanair's airport taxes and charges greater than Easyjet's at the same airport? Probably the same reason luggage costs are more, debit card fees are more and everything else costs more. I have just priced my next return trip with Easyjet and I can fly the same dates for £39 less with greater weight allowances and a more enjoyable experience (I don't feel I am being ripped off all the time). Fair enough, it adds an hour to my trip because I have to fly to Barcelona Central instead of Reus but it's worth it.

RYANAIR review :  17 June 2009 : by John Hayler  (UK)

Madrid-Santiago De Compostela. €1.80 return for flights incl tax! No card charge as paid with Visa Electron. No scrum at Madrid or Santiago airports, people queued in an orderly manner. A total of two people purchased priority boarding both ways. Inflight the crew, none of whom were Spanish were reasonably jolly. Constant plugging for the sale of scratchcards and phonecards throughout the flight.

RYANAIR review :  17 June 2009 : by Robert Phillips  (Belgium)

CRL-MAN-CRL. Maybe I have been lucky and one day the notorious Ryanair lack of service or care will hit me hard (they once landed me at Liege instead of Charleroi with no information and passengers left to fend for themselves). My recent experiences have been OK. Flights both ways half empty, lon time, strict checking of hand luggage on the way out. I find the pilots fine and cabin crew OK and I think they are beginning to realise that few people actually want to pay the inflated bar/food prices or buy a scratchcard. Just sad they use such a terrible airport as Charleroi.

RYANAIR review :  17 June 2009 : by W Beard  (UK)

Birmingham – Girona return, flights on time. Planes clean, staff friendly and helpful. Second return flight with Ryanair this year and experiences been very pleasant. It is great to have an airline that flies from my local airport to a wide of destinations. The service, for money and comfort provided by Ryanair is far superior to the other low cost airline operating from T2 at Birmingham. The only negative is Ryanair’s ludicrous decision to charge for online check in!

RYANAIR review :  14 June 2009 : by Anne O'Neill  (Ireland)

We were due to fly back from Birmingham to Dublin on 10 June on flight 673 after our flight time had been changed from the 19.40 flight to the 16.40 flight. It is a disgrace that nether flight departed and we were left sitting around until the 22.30 flight being given no communication on the delays or how long we would be waiting and only given meal vouchers to the value of £3.50 at 20.30 when the majority of restaurants were closed. As a result I would be very reluctant to fly with the airline ever again and they should compose a better communication police for this type of situation in the future.

RYANAIR review :  14 June 2009 : by Steve Mann  (UK)

Gone are the so called 'cheap' flights. We travelled Stansted-Zadar-Stansted, May 2009. Whilst the flights themselves were fine and the check in at Stansted was easy thanks to the kiosk ticket system, if one of your bags is over the weight limit (regardless if the 2nd is more than that under weight) you will still get charged for excess weight as it is 'per bag', not aggregate total weight. Also, the 'cheap' flight price as advertised when you first make your booking is added to for every conceivable thing - checking in bags, taxes etc. These are not given to you up front on their website when first investigating your flight costs, making comparison with others impossible. In conclusion - the flights themselves are ok but the flight costs are spiralling.

RYANAIR review :  9 June 2009 : by M Morosini  (UK)

STN-CIA-STN. Flights were booked back in February, and I have an Australian passport, so am always forced to pay for airport check-in, which I did. This was the 10th return trip I had made with Ryanair. Check-in at STN was fine, due to their DIY kiosks. In Rome for the return, however, it was a different story. A nasty woman at check in asked me if I had a bag to check- in. I said 'No', to which she screamed at me, 'Where is your bag? I have to see your bag. She saw that it was a smallish bag, and then screamed at me, 'weight it - I have to see how much it weighs.' Her delight in seeing my little bag was 2kg overweight was obvious. Check it in, or get rid of 2 kg!! she demanded. I told her firmly I would make it 2kg lighter, and she screamed 'Make it 10kg, then I will give you your boarding pass'. I hid in a corner of the terminal and pulled my bag apart. Into the rubbish bin went all my toiletries, my towel and a pair of (cheap) shorts. I put my long trousers on over my shorts I was wearing, and another shirt went over the one I was wearing. On went my coat, even though it was 27 degrees in the airport. Into every pocket I could find went everything with some weight in it. Lenses came off cameras, cameras were emptied of their batteries, every coin I could locate - in short, everything weighing more than a few grams went into my pockets. I went back to the same check- in harpy, with my pockets bulging with stuff, and holding my guidebook that had been in the bag. My little bag was now 9.8 kg. 'Good', she said in a calm voice, 'You get your boarding pass!' So this entire farce was designed to humiliate and degrade me. I was still carrying the same weight onto the aircraft, it was now on my person rather than in my bag. (Maybe half a kilo was on the bin.) Those passengers who had online check-in were queuing with bags that obviously weighed much more than my 12 kg I fronted up to check-in with. As a former reviewer commented, buy a Ryanair cheap flight and you sell your human dignity. My 10th trip with Ryanair will be my last. It'll be easyJet from now on. They have unlimited cabin luggage weight.

RYANAIR review :  5 June 2009 : by Roger Boyle  (Malta)

MLA-LTN-MLA. Their hidden charges are horrendous. You never know what and when you are going to be charged next. Booking on line is fine but don't be fooled by the EUR0.00 fares at first sight. You will end up paying over EUR150. And that's just what you pay on line. Then you check-in. They size up your hand luggage and tell you it's too large. You then take out some items to make it fit. Then you are charged excess for checking it in. No exceptions. Ground staff, especially in Malta are grumpy and evidently do not like doing Ryanair flights, especially since Ryanair is now moving towards 100% on line check-in, for which passengers will have to pay! Once you make a run for the plane to get a good seat, you are "greeted" with grumpy cabin crew. The plane is shabby and seating, well, is just that. Next thing you know is they will charge you for the air that you breathe inside their planes.

RYANAIR review :  4 June 2009 : by James Burke  (Canada)

DUB-EMA-DUB. Took the early morning flight to East midlands. Short line for the Visa Check since I was staying in UK/IE. Boarding smooth in Dublin, flight was on time. FAs were indifferent but polite. The seats were cramped, but nothing out of the ordinary. I paid 20 euros for a Bank Holiday weekend getaway, checked in 2 weeks before and did all of the Visa checks. If one plans ahead, Ryanair is fine.

RYANAIR review :  1 June 2009 : by A Paterson  (UK)

Glasgow Prestwick to Paris Beauvais. Booked 3 returns from Prestwick to Beauvais, advertised price £9.99 outbound and £0.00 inbound. When booking complete total came to £225.45 including online check-in for 3 bags and £30.00 to use a credit card! (2 of the bags were guitar cases). On arrival at Prestwick proceeded to bag drop-off to be told that my bag was a guitar. Yes, I said, it is. Then it can't travel as baggage. Why - it travelled as baggage last year on this same flight. It can't travel as baggage, you'll have to pay £40.00 for each guitar each way and £20.00 each way to replace your boarding cards. Total £200.00 on top of the £225.45 already paid! I asked if we could top up the £30 already paid as baggage and was told no and there was no point writing to Ryanair as you have no chance of a refund. Upshot of all this is that we did not travel, could not perform in France as booked and will never travel with Ryanair again.

RYANAIR review :  28 May 2009 : by J Ross  (UK)

Travelled from Manchester Airport. Bought new luggage to exact dimensions in cabin allowance information. Absolutely flabbergasted that my husband and I were told our bags too big, even though his cardboard box fitted over our cases. The man said his box was bent slightly at the bottom! We had to pay £30.00 each. We had already paid £30.00 each for the new cases. Our cases fitted with excess all round in the airport check cabin baggage cages, but he said that did not matter! We noticed that the people he selected were the very young and the very old, he used discrimination against us as pensioners, he obviously thought we would not make a fuss. The staff at Bremen airport said we should not have been charged and were amazed and kept apologising for the behaviour of the Manchester staff. We were told that they are not employed by Ryanair, but are trained by them. Almost every passenger who passed our seats as we sat at the very front, had bags bigger than ours!

RYANAIR review :  27 May 2009 : by J Barstow  (UK)

After a recent trip to Girona with Ryanair, and having to ridiculous excess charges, discovered that if you take a hand baggage too big to the boarding gate (regardless of weight) they simply only charge you £30 as opposed to a price to check it in, better still it will even get put in the hold of the aircraft. Despite the charges, the flights were good - relatively clean plane, airports organised (we flew from Bristol) and friendly crew. Not as bad as expected.

RYANAIR review :  25 May 2009 : by C Skagfjorde  (UK)

Ryanair are now getting so desperate for cash that they are targeting their regular flyers. By changing their terms and conditions at will. Every regular flyer knows that the basic flight is cheap but then they hit you for the extras. So you look for the small-print a book accordingly. However, the game they are playing now with the check-in costs - first they say you can't check-in online with luggage, weeks later when you take the flight you must pay on- line or there is a fine - alienates the very people who are their bread and butter. Don't waste time on complaints, people - it's all covered in the 6-page terms and conditions. In the past, a Ryanair queue was a humorous experience for regular travellers. On my past 2 flights, everyone I spoke to was very angry. They had all been hit by 30 quid for this or 20 quid for that - despite thinking they new the rules. The queues to pay the fines were almost as long as the check-in. The people I pity most are the shareholders. There is no brand value to Ryanair. Anyway, my current favourite Ryanair scam is that it costs 60 Euro to book an extra bag but 15 quid a kilo to put anything in it! Short-term - so you pay 285 Euro for a 15Kg bag. Can anyone beat that?