Low cost airlines

lettucefire

lettucefire

lettucefire

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13 Jan 2010
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Watching this documentary got me thinking about low-cost airlines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bigscreen/tv/episode/b02yyqrc/

I've always been a fan of easyjet, orange is my favourite colour but aside from the ridiculous, i prefer the easyjet airbus 320/319 to ryanair's boeing 737-800 i've always felt they whale about less in the air and as far as i've experienced the cabins are nicer (i've never liked the shiny sticky seats on ryanair) and the staff are nicer.

This documentary though made me appreciate michael o'leary more, i've never liked him much but it seemed to warm me to his approach a little. The documentary seems to dispel the usual standing room only/ paying for the toilet / staff cannot charge mobiles at work rumours as useful spin for ryanair.

I've tried both , i won't fly ryanair and their remote airports anymore but what are your thoughts and experiences of both?
 
My brother was cabin crew with Ryanair a few years ago at Stansted I think. He thinks they treat their staff like garbage and has vowed to never fly with them again.
 
Yeah in the documentary it kind of confirms it's every hand to the pump and on easyjet they show the co-pilot helping pick up rubbish between flights to help speed up the turnaround.
 
Yeah it's a bit love and hate with him, £350m is an impressive score, he's clearly ruthless but part of me can't help admire him. I mean the fact ryanair is supposedly bigger than easyjet or BA in terms of company value is pretty impressive. Incredible when you consider people choose to fly in a high altitude barn
 
lettucefire said:
on easyjet they show the co-pilot helping pick up rubbish between flights to help speed up the turnaround.
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Yeah when the camera is there. Other than that I've seen it once in 6 years. :D

For the purpose of the records, Easy is an awesome place to work.

They are looking for apprentices right now if anyone is interested in a lifetime of aviation boredom.
 
I fly domestically with easyjet a lot and think that overall they're very good. The cattle queue they like to form 20 minutes before allowed anywhere near the plane is an annoyance, but other than that I have zero complaints - staff are always very helpful and I haven't had many occasions where I've been charged for forgetting tickets / baggage issues etc.

Would have no hesitation flying anywhere under 5 hours or so with easyjet.


Ryanair on the other hand are a complete joke of an airline as a passenger and I won't fly anywhere with them, as a business model though I can see how it works - reel people in with headline numbers and sting with add ons. It's fairly clear the employees hate working there and pass this on to passengers, it's far too easy to be caught short and charged and I've always found the legroom appaling (though perhaps this is psychological as I've never had the issue with easyjet), planes are generally a bit tatty inside too.

Jet2 are good, as are Flybe - flybe aren't so cheap anymore mind you and they seem to be getting rid of the characterful turboprops
 
I flew Ryan Air once and ended up stranded on the tarmac in Berlin for 3 hours. During this time a single 20 second advert looped non stop over the PA and the crew said they were not allowed to turn it off. I vowed never to fly RyanAir again or buy the product described in the advert. I've managed to stick to my boycott so far but it has cost probably me a few hundred quid in flying with other airlines.
 
I've used German wings a few times. Think it's the budget end of Lufthansa. Was a reasonable price from Edinburgh to Cologne. Best bit was, for a tenner or so you can upgrade to hold luggage, comfier seat with more legroom and munchies during the flight. Bargain!
Oh yeah, hate Ryanair with a vengeance. Shiite attitude, ****** service and then they dump you miles in the the middle of nowhere. Have you ever SEEN Weeze? Dusseldorf my arse!
 
Never had a problem with flying with low cost airlines, have yet to fly with Ryanair though but I've heard some terrible things from people who have so will give them a miss if I can.
 
I flew ryan air for the first time a few weeks ago. I stupidly did not check in online and got bent over with 70 quid check in charge for a 100 quid fare!
And this wasnt even using up staff time as they had self checking machines with credit card readers.
I can understand penalizing, but this is just straight up scumbaggery. Can't see any rationale for no check ins 4 hours before and no print outs 2 hours beforehand other then ripping off the uninitiated.
I will never fly them again, but I suppose with those ridiculous charges they have probably made enough profit off me.
So tempted to take a **** on the floor and delay their plane, but the staff were actually quite nice.
 
Ryanair know how to bend the rules to just short breaking point. They get round the credit card charging rules by having one specific pre paid card noones ever heard of to keep it legal. Also charging £70 for stuff that dosent cost a penny is robbery. O'learys reply is always the same, if you do t like it, bugger off. Great customer care.
 
I used to fly Bristol>Edinburgh every month on BA, AS THEY WERE CHEAPER THAN EASYJET AND HAD NICER AIRCRAFT!

The sheeple didn't bother to check BA prices for the same journey and so BA closed the route due to lack of passengers. Needless to say, EasyJet then bumped up their prices from £60 return to £100 as they no longer had any competition on that route.

This was about 8 years ago though.
 
i've flown to the isle of man from Liverpool a few times with easyjet, that's an odd trip of about 20 minutes. you can buzz for a drink but you wouldn't really have time to drink it before landing!
 
danielanthony said:
I used to fly Bristol>Edinburgh every month on BA, AS THEY WERE CHEAPER THAN EASYJET AND HAD NICER AIRCRAFT!

The sheeple didn't bother to check BA prices for the same journey and so BA closed the route due to lack of passengers. Needless to say, EasyJet then bumped up their prices from £60 return to £100 as they no longer had any competition on that route.

This was about 8 years ago though.
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Most of the time when I book flights, I find by the time I've added on what I need hold luggage etc. A lot of the time it's as cheap/not much more to fly BA/KLM/Lufthansa etc.

Budget airlines are fine if you're happy to try and stuff a weekends/weeks worth of luggage into your carry on, but I'm too old and too much of a snob for it now.
 
I start to feel as if those low cost airlines stop being that low cost when it comes to eastern Europe. I flew a few times to places such as the Czech Republic and Bulgaria(amongst others) and I have been finding it harder and harder to find actually decent price on tickets. My last year's ticket to Prague costs me more without checked luggage than what one costs me two years prior that had luggage included(about 70 pounds difference!).

This summer I ended up with the ironic situation where I paid about 270 pounds for return Aeroflot flight to Moscow,Russia(no need for online check-in and luggage, food or on-board entertainment included) while Ryanair had its lowest return ticket to Plovdiv,Bulgaria standing around 320 pounds(only travelling with hand luggage). The ones I was checking for Sofia (Easyjet and Wizzair,both "low cost" airlines too) were charging even more! Add to it that Aeroflot uses Heathrow which is quite easy to get to while the others use various other London airports. I know summers are more active seasons but that was just shocking to see it in such perspective!After all, Moscow is a bit further away destination,non-EU, and its meant to be busy route anyway.
 
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