Ryanair - What Is The General Consensus?

[flying bug]

Is Ryanair seen as the intruder, the agressor, the not-feasable, the un-serious, the exploiter? Or is it seen as the innovator, the democratisator of air trafic, the catalyst?

Is Ryan exploiting their staff? Are they paying less attention to detail, security or dedication for economic pressure? Or are they lean, quick, efficient, flexible, open-minded? Do they suppress or encourage staff?

 

[Whadayano]

They are too lean, IMHO. It's neat to get 7.99 euro fares one way from Rome to London on sale (not so neat that the taxes are another 16+ euros). But they are talking about new planes having seats that don't lean back, to save on seat repairs. Okay, perhaps, if you are on one of their average flights of 1 hour. Not so neat if you are on their longer ones, which are around 3 hours. Seriously though, Europe deregulated in 1997, we did it in 1978. There's a long way to go in Europe's evolution and right now, Ryanair is clearly one of the winners, even if their ceo's ego is out of control--which it clearly is. He's rapidly becoming a negative for the company.

 

[PHX Flyer]

I am not so sure, if they are going to remain on the winning side in the long run. When I think of Ryanair, Gordon Bethune and his famous metaphoric pizza comes to mind. You can take only so many toppiongs off, until noone wants to eat it anymore. And Ryanair delivers nothing but the abre crust. Their new B737-800 come indeed with non-reclining seats, no sun-shades, no bulk-heads, and the safety instructions glued on the backrest of the seat in fron of you. When you call customer service for whatever reason, incl. making a reservation, you pay approx. 60-70 cents/min, no matter how long they put you on hold. On board you have to pay for any drink, incl. water, and bringing your own supplies is frowned upon. They offer only point-to-point flights, strictly no connections, because they do not want to be held liable for missed connections. If you'd bother to try nonetheless, you'd have to claim your bags at the connecting hub, leave security and repeat the entire check-in procedure from scratch for the connecting flight. They often compare themselves to Southwest, which IMHO is kind of offensive - Southwest comes across as a full-service carrier compared to Ryanair.
Their CEO, Micheal O'Leary, gathered a lot of attention in the European press with provocative statements, belittling the competition, bragging about his own successes, and so on. Initially it was seen as funny, but now he is mostly perceived as arrogant. I agree with Whadayano that he is increasingly becoming a burden for the company.