Ryanair

We were very pleased with all aspects of our Ryanair experience both to and from East Midlands Airport and Barcelona Airport last week. The booking, reminders and boarding passes were easily accessed. The staff on the ground and inflight were very efficient and hard working, friendly and pleasant at all times. People had said that due to previous reports about Ryanair, stopped them from flying with the company. We found these comments untrue, and will certainly use Ryanair again. Perhaps, if passengers were to read the full details, instead of assuming, they would have a better view.

2nd June Flight from Bergamo to East Midlands. Whilst in the queue to board a member of staff tagged my hand luggage and boarding pass with yellow stickers. I was just over half way down the queue. All the people around me were being tagged so thought nothing of it. On boarding I moved to my seat half way along the plane. A member of the crew who was stood near to my seat told me my bag should've been left at the entrance and put in the hold. I had at no point before this been told to do so. The aisle was rammed with passengers but she still wanted me to take my bag off the plane. After much discussion I persuaded her to let me put my bag in the overhead where there was plenty of space and I would remove it if necessary. I sat and watched many more passengers board who had arrived much later than me (no stickers on their bags) as it happened there was plenty of space in the lockers so my bag stayed put. I had booked hand luggage only as I needed to be out of the airport quickly. My bag was not oversized and I was nowhere near the back of the queue for boarding. I am not happy that I was made to feel so uncomfortable in front of other passengers.

Glasgow to Bydgoszcz on Friday 5th June. Well this was supposed to be the date at 4.30pm. This was then delayed an hour. So it gets to 5.30pm and off I go to board, all good lets us board the plane. Once everyone is on they then announce there is a technical issue and leave us on a hot plane for 1.5 hrs. They then tell us the flight is cancelled and we need to disembark. Arrange another flight for us at 8.45pm. So we are waiting around for hours with a £3.50 voucher provided for food and drink. Anyone that knows airports knows that this would get you a bottle of water if your lucky! So take 2 go to board for the 8.45pm flight, get to the gate and even though the plane is there they tell us we are not going and no explanation as to why. We then have to go and collect any luggage and when I ask if there is any news get rudely told to go "stand over there!" Finally they arrange to get us taxi's to a local hotel. Well 6 taxi's for a whole flight took quite a lot of time. It's midnight by the time I get there and the front desk tell us we need to be ready for 5am. So get to the airport for 5am, the flight is then put back an hour. Finally time to board and not a member of staff in sight, they finally arrive at 8.30 and start to board us. Once everyone is on board we then have to sit there to wait for "paperwork" and then another passenger. Finally we leave after 9.30am but are then told there are no drinks or food on board. Now these things happen when flying but it was the total lack of care or empathy from the staff and the lack of communication that was the absolute worst. I for one will never fly with Ryanair again, this was the first and last time!

Flew from Warsaw Modlin to London Stansted. Going back to Warsaw tried to reach Stansted by train operated by Stansted Express. They experienced some problems on that day (6th June) and had delays of up to 120 mins. Managed to get to Stansted one hour before flight, but stuck with security check finally missed the flight. In fact we were at the gate 10 minutes before planned start time. I was accompanied by a group of 10 people at the same situation. Gate was already closed and Ryanair clerk informed us that they cannot risk any delays for those who are late. So far so good, best came at their so called "Customer service" point where pleasant clerk advised me to take Taxi and not to take train next time. Thank you Ryan for that piece of really valuable advise. Next time I am not going to take Ryanair in the first place. You ask about Food and Beverages, they are excellent as long as you buy them at the airport and take with you on board. Similar with Inflight Entertainment unless you treat selling some lottery tickets as entertaining activity, the entertainment is going to be great onboard provided that you prepared something yourself for the trip.

Went STN-DUB-STN with both flights not having any incidents although my inbound flight was delayed in a very inconveniencing way. I had heard carriers like this tend to have delays on evening flights but I thought it might be worth at least one try - big mistake! The flight landed so late I missed the last train back to my house, which meant I had to take a bus and add about an hour to my already very late (past midnight) trip home. On my outbound flight the staff also seemed very confused when I asked for an Irish immigration form, as when I got to the airport it turned out I did not need one, and it might have been nice for the attendants to know this type of information for an international flight.

Went STN-CHP-STN, with no real incidents on either flight although they both left late. On the way back the attendants 'just happened' to have a UK immigration form as I'm not from the EU so for a bit I thought there might have been a problem. Coming back they even let me check in my hand luggage which actually made things a bit easier which was nice.

FR2005, Stansted to Otopeni, Romania. This was our first flight with Ryanair and we approached it with a degree of caution and apprehension. I have to say, that these feelings were unfounded. Ryanair in 2015, simply do not deserve the reputation they have. The entire booking process was easy to understand and administer. Follow the rules and it works well and easy. The flight itself was bang on time, smooth and a joy. A few of our fellow passengers were an issue, with what we understood to be their pre-emptively abrupt attitude with staff which was mildly unpleasant and entirely unnecessary but perhaps a hangover of Ryanair of old. I think that all Ryanair need to do now to complete their transformation to a customer friendly carrier, is make water affordable on board. Perhaps £1 for a 500ml bottle of water wouldn't be too much to ask?

Flew with Ryanair for the first time from Alicante to Manchester. I had not printed off my boarding passes for the three of us. I was not able to do this where we were staying. They then wanted 45 euros from each off us to do this. I managed to get to a PC at the airport and do it myself. The queues for check in were like Russian Bread Queues from the 1970's. When we eventually go to the front the check in clerk next to our queue (without any notice) closed his queue and then his queue tried to push into ours. It was appalling and could have escalated into something nasty all due to the bad customer service from Ryanair. I also witnessed an elderly disabled passenger become very distressed when she learned she could not take her collapsible walking aid onto the plane even though she'd been told in advance that she could. She became very distressed as she could not walk without it and was not offered a wheelchair. Absolutely appalling treatment. I will never fly with them again terrible customer service.

May 14 FR1199 Athens to Rome. We will never fly Ryanair again. The terminals for checking baggage did not work. The staff at the Athens airport was not helpful to us or from what I could see any one else. This is not a low cost airline for travelers with luggage (you will pay about 45 euro per bag) and not good for travelers without access to printers (15 euro per non-printed boarding pass). Also charge if you don't check in before arriving at airport but I had done that so I'm not sure of the charge. Printers did not work at airport.

The flights between Madrid and Manchester are arriving systematically with a significant delay. The arrival in Manchester which was scheduled before Eastern at 11pm was rescheduled to 11.30pm. Nevertheless the flight arrives at least one hour later most of the time. One time the flight arrived so late that the officers at the passport control were gone. The last time that I took that flight Mon. June 1st it arrived at 1am. These times really disrupt the life of anybody who has to work the next morning. There is no explanation given. My guess is that Ryanair has multiplied the number of flights but it is the same number of planes.