More on Ryanair

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You have to hand it to Ryanair. They keep throwing more and more 'excrement' at their passengers and each one just takes it in the chin.

This week - following the worst single quarter operating loss the company has seen - Ryanair announce that they are considering putting two more 'cost reduction' efforts in place

1) The 'pay-to-pee' initiative CEO o'Leary mentioned earlier this year (pay to use the toilets - 2 of which he will get rid of to add a further 6 seats to a plane)
2) Load your own baggage. Not only will you now have to pay £10 to take hold luggage you may also now have to load it onto the plane yourself. This will save the cost of paying baggage handlers.

There are a couple of comments to make about this (Other than my usual one of "How much worse can a company treat it's customers before they desert in droves?"):

1) £1 to pee sounds like a lot. But as one enterprising young individual has said "I welcome the £1 charge for toilets. I will grab my paper and make the for nearest loo just after take off and stay in there till it's time to land. £1 for a private seat with extra legroom. You pay thousands for that on swiss air" - Jamie Vidamour.
2) What else can the company do to extract maximum revenue and provide minimum service? I suppsoe it must really irk o'Leary that he has to pay his pilots and cabin crew. Maybe he's looking at removing the cabin crew completely and replacing them with vending machines that people can buy food/scratchcards/drinks/phonecards from.
3) I am really surprised that he hasn't adopted the old American Airlines model of having plain silver aircraft. Someone worked out many years ago that if the planes were left as bare metal the weight reduction of 5 tons of paint that are used to coat the body would result in a cost saving from using less fuel.

I've discussed before and can't understand the logic. What other organisation expects to profit by treating its customers like dirt, claiming to be low priced but loading the fare with additional extras - some of which are not optional (such as the check-in fee and the credit card surcharge), and then makes the whole experience uncomfortable and just an excuse to extract more money from you?

I particularly like the Daily Mash take on the 'pay-to-pee' feeling. (Not for the easily offended)