4.5K

We like to poke fun at Ryanair on here every once in a while. After all, looking at how Ryanair operates gives us a welcome break away from being upset about how United, Delta and American are always one-upping each other with customer-unfriendly policies.

I’ve shared the time when the CEO called the customers a bunch of whiners because they didn’t pay for seat assignments. Sharon found what might be the funniest customer complaint letter ever written by a passenger after their experience with Ryanair agents at the airport when they were running late for a flight.

There once was a time when we could have taken a Ryanair flight. Here’s why we considered it (for a split second) and why we still didn’t fly with them.

We don’t often take short flights around Europe

This is just a fact of the way we travel. Because of limited vacation time, when we take a trip to Europe, we try to stay and only see one area. If going around a section of Europe, train travel is often more convenient and economical than flying. That’s how we got around Austria and Germany and it was amazingly easy.

If we’re making a connection in Europe, our flight is part of a TATL (TransATLantic) ticket, so we would be connecting to an alliance partner (American+British Airways or Singapore+Lufthansa) and not to a Ryanair flight. Since most of Ryanair’s flights are point to point jaunts, they aren’t even a consideration for us.

There was one trip when we were going to be visiting London (to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and Salzburg (because Sound of Music). These were originally going to be two separate trips, but to save vacation time and airline miles, we decided to join the two trips together. I had the airfare to London and home from Salzburg booked but we still needed to get between the two cities.

I knew British Airways flew between the two cities, so I planned to buy a cheap ticket or to burn some of my Avios miles. One problem – they didn’t fly the route on the ONE DAY OF THE WEEK that we needed to go. AARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

So I looked for options. British Airways did offer us a flight from London to Berlin and then onto Salzburg. It doubled the travel time but it worked. The problem was since Avios prices for the flight (2 flights = double the miles), the cost just went up. I looked at trains but it was like 12 hours of travel time, nope. So I searched some more. Ryanair flies from London to Salzburg. Non-stop. I know we said we’d never fly them but let’s see…

When traveling in Europe, we’d have luggage (lots of it)

For being seasoned travelers, packing light just isn’t something we’ve learned how to do very well. Oh, we’re getting better at it. This still means for a 7-10 day trip we’d each have a suitcase, roll-aboard bag and small carry-on or computer bag each. If we flew on Ryanair, we’d have to pay for those bags. That takes the low-price advantage away for us and makes it the same or cheaper to take a full-service airline (*cough* I just referred to British Airways inter-Europe flights as “full service” *cough*).

So I checked the prices for us to bring just 1 suitcase each. £25 for each bag. On top of that, I’d have to make sure our suitcases weighed the correct amount, which is less than we’re used to. Our cabin bags also had to be the exact sizes. All things I could manage knowing in advance, but more things to worry about.

Now I remembered why we said we weren’t going to fly on Ryanair, but onward I searched (not telling Sharon, as I’d have to work pretty hard to convince her to fly Ryanair) (Note from Sharon: You’re darn tootin’.).

Ryanair usually flies from the furthest airport from major cities

I checked and the Ryanair flight to Salzburg leaves from London Stansted airport. While this may be convenient if you live in the area and would be driving to the airport, it would mean that from London, we’d need to take a 45-minute train ride to the airport. That’s on top of the Underground trip to the train station from our hotel. Not a deal killer but still another logistical challenge.

The flight schedules on Ryanair are limited

Did I mention the flights to Salzburg from Stansted Airport left at 6:35 & 7:15AM? So there would be no way possible (besides getting a taxi or private car) for us to get to the airport in the morning in time for our flight. These were the only flights on the schedule (two flights a day, first thing in the morning). So we would have needed to get there the night before and stay somewhere near Stansted Airport just to get this flight with Ryanair.

That was the final stumble. I stopped wasting time and started looking for flights with connections. We flew from Heathrow and ended up on a combination of British Airways and Airberlin flights (this was before they declared bankruptcy).

Final Thoughts

Just as we didn’t fly on Allegiant and have no intentions of flying Spirit, I don’t think we’ll ever fly on Ryanair. I don’t want to say never (Note from Sharon: I would) because if the price and the schedule and the type of trip fit perfectly, I’d possibly, maybe, questionably consider flying with them (Note from Sharon: If you ever do, I’ll meet you there. I’m not flying on Ryanair. Ever.). It’s just that I value my vacation time too much and traveling is part of my vacation. If the airport process and the in-flight experience is horrible, it has a chance of ruining my vacation. That’s something I don’t want to risk.

Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 11,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!

This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

Featured Image © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons