I'm Impressed By Ryanair

As someone who clocks up an unfortunately high number of flights due to living 1000 miles from where I grew up and the lack of high-speed, cost-effective rail across Europe, I’m pretty much a connoisseur of the budget carriers running from Budapest to the UK.

Which? reckon that the only airline worse than Ryanair is WizzAir, and I probably agree with them. For a while, Wizz were actually a cheap and comfortable alternative, but they’ve been engaged in a race to the bottom and they seem to have lost the plot somewhat.

Infamously, Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s CEO once said ‘Our booking engine is full of passengers who have sworn they will never fly with us again’. He’s not wrong. I’m one of them. Ryanair fly to somewhere near your destination, arriving sometime near to when they said they would (with triumphant fanfares if they manage to arrive inside their inflated travel time estimate) and most of the time gets your bag there.

I could write tomes on Ryanair (and may do at some point when I’m feeling a bit less generous), but it’s hardly their fault that customers keep choosing to put price above every other consideration, and they have managed to eke out a way to make a margin by gutting customer service, charging for every little extra they can, and cost-cutting at every corner. If you don’t like Ryanair, pay the extra to fly with a proper carrier, or accept that your ‘complaints’ are really just whinging.

Except…

A few days ago, I was booked onto a flight with my wife and son, leaving Budapest at 17:00, arriving in the UK about two and a half hours later at 18:20 (yes, but timezones).

We arrived at the airport around 14:30, leaving plenty of time for us to drop our bags off, get through security, get through passport control, and arrive at the gate, hopefully having had time for something to eat along the way. Turns out, a delay of almost 2 hours was announced while we were on the bus, and our departure time had been moved to 18:55.

Budapest airport is actually very pleasant, and bag drop-off and security went as smoothly as could be expected with a 2-year-old, so we went straight through and sat down for something to eat in the departure lounge.

As we ate, the delay grew from 1h55 to 4 hours, with a new departure time of 21:00 announced. We groaned inwardly as the kids’ playpark had already lost its allure, but settled in for a long wait, and headed off to get some more refreshments.

By the time I got back, the delay had been reduced again to 20:15, and boarding was announced. We headed through passport control and final call was announced… standard fare for Ryanair to try to rush people to the gate—when we arrived, the gate was not even open. However, they opened the gate quickly and crowded us into a holding small pen, where we were waiting for a while before boarding at around 20:30.

On the plane, optimism sparkled in our eyes, until 45 minutes later, the pilot announced that the airport was closed due to a storm, and that anyone who needed the toilet could stand up and shortly after, that we could expect another 2 and a half hours of delay.

Fortunately, our two-year-old fell asleep relatively soon after, and while the cabin crew announced that refreshments were available for purchase, they did give us water for free when we asked.

After another 2 hours or so of being cooped up on the plane, we took off and had a fairly uneventful flight to BHX, landing 6 hours and 4 minutes later than scheduled.

Thankfully, EU law means that passengers who are delayed to their final destination by more than 3 hours are entitled to compensation unless the situation is beyond the airline’s control. I have had one case to claim in the past (not against Ryanair), and the process was exceptionally drawn out and tedious. The airline (Austrian, for what it’s worth), were very slow to respond, made it complicated by asking for various pieces of proof (scans of boarding cards, ID documents, etc.) in various email exchanges with weeks in between, and made incorrect statements about what compensation I was entitled to (blaming circumstances beyond the airline’s control which was not the case, and so on and so forth). I know a few other people who have had similar issues with claiming compensation, so I was expecting a long, drawn-out email battle.

I was expecting the argument that the delay was due to the weather, and so out of Ryanair’s control. Or the argument that although there was a ‘minor technical issue’ with the plane (which I had carefully screenshotted the notification of), it only contributed to the initial, 1h55m delay, and the subsequent delay was out of Ryanair’s control (which, prima facie seems to be true).

There was none of that. A simple, easy to complete form (although I did have to enter my name in capitals to be able to submit). No complex questions, no space to upload attachments, not even a field asking you to explain why you think you’re entitled to justification, just your name, any passengers you’re claiming on behalf of, the flight number and your booking reference.

I submitted the form and the same day got a response from customer service acknowledging the submission, apologising for the delay, and promising to transfer the compensation within 7-10 days.

Hats off to Ryanair—clearly they have streamlined this process and are doing the right thing by their customers here.

Just because they’re cheap and cheerful doesn’t always mean they’re crap.