Ryanair

I have flown frequently with Ryanair this year, usually on this route. It has never been late, and although boarding can be a bit cattle like, it's quick and efficient. The cabin crew are hardworking and get on with their job. Both airports function well and after big terminals it's pleasant to get through them easily.

One day round trip AMS-DUB-AMS. I flew second time with this carrier. Online check in was perfect. They have an app, so no need to print out my boarding pass again. Just have the barcode on my phone scanned to board the plane. One hour delay on outbound flight but on time on the inbound. Cheap €30 round trip. Very basic service. Nothing fancy, but if they can offer tickets as low as €2 per trip, I don't complain. Great way to spend the day, flying abroad for less money.

Flew Edinburgh to Brussels with Ryanair. Airline travel at it's most basic. Cheap and effective but not particularly enjoyable. Cost cutting too far? I'd happily pay an extra fiver for my flight to have a seat pocket where I can put stuff for the flight without having to balance everything on my lap. A particularly big problem if in emergency exit row as you can't have bags near you. Next bugbear is seat comfort. OK just about for a two hour flight but more like on a local bus or commuter train. Sit on rather than in them. Otherwise early both ways, pilot kept us well informed. But need somewhere to store magazines, water bottles etc on a flight.

I am a frequent flyer of Ryanair. I am aware of the charges that they have, which I have always honored whenever I have had to make any changes. Today I made a change online on a booking which my family had initially booked and paid for, but in error I changed the name on the wrong flight. I immediately contacted Customer Service via their online chat service, to help me with this mistake. I asked them to change my name to another booking (Germany to Dublin) since a few minutes before I had already paid a fee of 110ers on a wrong booking/flight (Dublin to Malta). Unfortunately I was told that they could not make this change and I had to pay another 110ers again to make that change. It was a genuine mistake which was going to cost me another 110ers. It is ridiculous! It is a shockingly bad policy. Why do you have a customer service when you are not there to help the customer!

The outbound Ryanair flight was fine and ran to schedule however the return flight was a different matter entirely. On 11th December the country was suffering some severe weather and Ryanair cancelled every inbound and outbound flight to Dublin. I appreciate that safely is of upmost importance but many other airlines were still operating with the majority of Air Lingus flights still flying in and out. There was no explanation why this was so. The next available free transfer to another Ryanair flight out of Dublin was 6 days later. We managed to book on an Air Lingus flight a day later. The refund from Ryanair was paid promptly but it would have been nice to receive information as to why there was a blanket cancellation of all of their flights on the day when other airlines were still operating.

Horrible experience with Ryanair from Dublin to London Gatwick. Flights were cancelled while the planes sat at the gates, unable to take off because of weather (they said, other airlines were landing and departing). They emailed us to notify us of the cancellation - no staff to help at the gate. It was chaotic. The lines at Dublin airport were hours long and they encouraged us to leave the queue to book online. Their website, poorly designed by any standard, could not handle the traffic and we could do nothing. I finally ended up booking a flight on Aer Lingus just to get out of there. Although I had paid little for the ticket, the inconvenience was significant.

One way daytime Ryanair flight from Birmingham to Lanzarote. Pushed off and landed on-time, if not a few minutes early. Fairly full plane but had a spare seat to stretch into, so more comfortable than the usual Ryanair seating. Cabin crew cheerful and pleasant. There can't be many people on this earth who don't know that budget airlines make their profit from quite pricey on-board food. I reckoned a good 80% of the passengers bought food and/or drinks on the plane, and seemed to be doing so from choice. So why complain that it is dear? Take food with you if you're that bothered.

Ryanair flight from London to Barcelona was ok but seatbelt light was on for nearly the whole of the two hours and definitely the last hour. People kept trying to go to the toilet and were told to sit back down because the seatbelt light was on. There was no turbulance and no reason for the seatbelt sign to be on. I think they forgot to turn it off and made people sit in discomfort. Very annoyed because I was obviously one of those people. Our luggage also took 1.5hrs to come out which was annoying because I had to meet my B&B host at a certain time.

Vilnius to Milan. Disappointing customer service today. Ryanair tries so hard to reestablish its image in the eyes of Internet. However, the attitude towards their customers is still miserable. I couldn't check-in on their website, neither could my friend the day before. We both had the same bug. I've contacted Ryanair through live chat and they said they don't have any bugs, and probably it's my problem. They advised me to use Mozilla instead of Safari and Chrome. The representative asked me if it was fixed and without waiting for my reply immediately added "Goodbye" and logged out. Situation 2 (with happy ending this time). Within 24 hours of my booking I decided to change the date of my flight. On live chat they've reassured me that it was changed. One day before my flight when I decided to check-in I found out that the date wasn't changed, and it caused a lot of stress. I was really lucky they still had some seats for a preferred date. Though this time they apologised and immediately changed the date, I appreciated that. On other note, the advantage is its low cost. However, most of times I prefer same-priced but more polite Wizzair.

Stormy weather and cancelled flights because of a natural cause happen. And people were not mad at all, just tired and a bit confused. Everybody tried to solve the situation peacefully. But Ryanair simply doesn't care about anybody. Providing people with bottled water and blankets for the night wouldn't really cost much. Ryanair simply didn't give a damn. Rude announcements telling hundreds of people to pretty much go away was all we've got. Shame.