RyanAir ... advice sought

Dear Friends .... and the IFAS Chairman,

I will be traveling to Rhodes tomorrow for a brief astrophotography session involving various monuments on the island. RyanAir has some incredible pricing and I will be using them for my flight to Rhodes and back.

I have a question for the group with experience involving RyanAir: my laptop case is about 4 cm too large in two of the three dimensions while grossly under the third dimension. Is RyanAir really sticky and measures everything down to the last centimeter, thus causing me problems with the laptop case?

Things in Greece tend to be very laxed but I do not know if the RyanAir personnel have been trained by the RyanAir head-honchos to be tyrants when it comes to airline standards.

Any advice and feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Anthony.

Anthony,
Expect to see staff patrol the queue looking for large cases.
Expect to see approx 10-20% of passengers hauled out of the queue - bag size seems irrelevant. I've seen people with tiny bags which were clearly within the regulations getting hauled out of the queue and checked .
Expect to have to demonstrate how your bag will fit through the steel frame.
No fit -> expect to pay the silly fees.
Sorry, not the news you wanted.
I've given up flying with them unless there is a major price difference or no other carrier to the destination.
Michael.

Hi Anthony,
Its funny really, some airports are crazy about this stuff while others don't care, that's been my experience, I dont know about your particular airports, These people get commission of catching oversized luggage, thats their incentive, if they catch someone before you then they mightn't look too hard at your case.

Treat ryanair as a bus with wings where everything is extra, then you wont be disappointed. I use them every few weeks, and thats how I see them.

Also, some of the most exciting landing I've ever been in, have all been with ryanair, its like the pilots are having a bad day with the boss and want to increase the landing gear maintenance charges .lol

ayiomamitis wrote: Dear Friends .... and the IFAS Chairman,

Did we not ban this guy?!

I'd have to agree with Michael for the most part, here. I don't use them.

The last time I *tried* to fly with Ryanair* there was a failure in their booking system that lasted four or five days. I rang two days in advance of my flight and pointed out that I couldn't confirm booking or print out the barcodes. I was told to print out the reciepts and everything would be ok.

Turned up at the airport and got "no confirmation, no boarding". I spoke to a manager who looked through me the entire time she was talking to me, I can only guess I was not bringing her the first instance of that issue. They would not let me or my other half board despite my pointing out that I had followed the instructions of the help-line.

Ended up paying for a last-minute Aer-Lingus flight which was expensive (relatively) but it was worth it given how distraught my other half was.

In all my years of flying Easyjet and other airlines I've never experienced such utter disdain. Never again. I know lots and lots of people successfully get to their destination each day with Ryanair but peace of mind is not worth going cheap IMHO.

Sorry for the rant.


* Ryanair was the only airline that I could find that was flying to the city I needed to get to.

Gents ... and IFAS chair,

Given the incredible pricing which they have made available, I had a suspicion that there would be gimmicks on their side to recoup some of the potentially lost revenue with small excesses in luggage being one such source.

I returned last night from Rhodes and, as I had suspected, our folks here are VERY laxed and indifferent. My larger piece was overweight by four kgs (14 kg instead of the maximum 10 kg) and yet the lady at the counter just ignored it, For the return trip, something similar.

Many thanks for the feedback and which I will keep in mind for travel beyond Greece.

Anthony!