Ryanair - Only TERRIBLE experience on our families 6 country European vacation 2014

With Ryanair it costs €70 to check in at the airport, but this is free if you check-in on line and print off your own boarding pass. May seem a lot when the fare could have been only CHF 24, but that's the way they work.

Were you aware that the only London area airports that Ryan uses are Stansted and Luton when you booked your flights - - rather than the two more commonly known facilities? if you knew, had you balanced their remoteness and cost of getting into the city against the fare economy?

As this is your first post here, welcome to the helpline.
Budget airlines have limitations, no matter what carrier, that help them make up for their low fares. If you somehow miss the rule that you must check in with Ryanair online and print your boarding pass yourself, you will be charged for checking in at the airport. You did right by paying to check your bags when you bought your tickets, since that costs extra, too, if paid at check in.

It's true that you don't get the same orderly boarding process with Ryanair that you are accustomed to with other airlines, but that is partly what keeps their costs down. And no, they don't do refunds. Why didn't you know what airport you were flying into? I have never arrived at Luton, but have used Stansted several times and found it to be a nice little airport with excellent transport available through National Express (which, when I have taken them, were nice, clean, modern buses). It's unfortunate that you had a bad experience, but a lot of that could have been avoided by doing a little homework beforehand.

I'm getting a little whiff of blame the victim here. I've read enough about the quirks (I'd call them horrors) of flying with Ryan Air, that I wouldn't use them. However, if my experience were based solely on using budget lines in the U.S. - - Southwest, Jet Blue, etc., I wouldn't know what to anticipate. Ryan's worst practice, imo, is to be unclear about just where they are actually going, e.g., calling Hahn, Frankfurt. SW, for example does not call Oakland or San Jose, San Francisco. Nor does it call Baltimore, Washington D.C.
@Donna: Stuff happens when you're traveling, and you have to learn not to let it spoil your trip. For your future reference, there are sites which rate airlines. (Google "airline ratings".) If you ever want to use a low cost carrier, again, check them out. Some are excellent. Maybe you want to add to the multitude of complaints about Ryan.

Ryanair does have plenty of annoying quirks which, in all fairness, are written down somewhere on their website. Their airports are always away from everything. Probably ALL of the other European budget airlines are easier to deal with. I flew into middle-of-nowhere Hahn plenty of times in the middle of the night saying "Never again!" then a few weeks later, up popped a 20 euro fare to somewhere great, and there I was again buying it. Love to hate 'em, but they've taken me to some wonderful places. With Ryanair I do my homework and try to look at them as "a means to the end." Never will be my first choice, or probably even my fourth, but sometimes....

Many of the airports Ryanair uses are the main airports (Glasgow, Barcelona, and Dublin, to name three), so it's not true that all of their airports are outlying or in other towns. Every time I have booked with Ryanair to London, my itinerary and boarding pass said "London Stansted", not "London". Ryanair is very clear that you are required to check in online and print your own boarding pass (or have an electronic version available) in order to avoid fees. It can be a shock to come across things that aren't like what you are used to, but the information is all there. With budget airlines you have to read and comply with all of their rules. Only then is it worth the price. I will keep flying with them because I love the low prices, and I have never had a late flight or any other problem. I have had late flights with bigger carriers, with no reduction in price to make up for it.

Ryan doesn't name the airports, it just uses the concrete.
It's Route Map clearly states Frankfurt Hahn, London Luton, London Stansted, etc. (BWI is not the closest airport to the Washington Monument.)
It would seem that if one wanted to go from Hotel A to Hotel B, one would examine all segments of the journey.

How can you knock something you haven't tried?

There's no blame since there was no accusation of moral irresponsibilty.
There's no victim since no one was duped.

Knowledge helps.
Assuming doesn't.

When booking a budget airline for the first time it is always best to check their baggage rules, restrictions, prices and reviews. Check what airport the flight departs from/arrives to then add the cost of the transportation to/from the airport to the total cost of the ticket. If the flight is longer than 2 hours figure on needing to buy snacks or drinks en flight or in the terminal. Do you need to upgrade for more leg room or pay to check your bag? If these costs added up together start to make the cost of the ticket close to what you would spend on one of the major airlines, then do what I do. Ditch the cheap flight and pay a little more to make sure you will be happier with your flight. Being a member of a frequent flyer program makes this decision easier, because you may look for/find the partner flights have a close cost to the budget guy. Also with partners you get to receive miles and you aren't treated to the "con-air" style of "customer service" that made companies like Ryan air infamous.

Last tip for flying...buy your food in the terminal not on the plane. Many restaurants will make a flight take away box for you with precut food, plastic silverware and everything. Much better eating than the stuff they try to pass off as food on most flights! If you have never eaten a pre-cut London Broil steak, garlic mash and steamed veg. on a flight in front of others eating pretzels then you have not lived yet!
Good luck and Happy Travels!

I have flown from Seattle to whatever place our major European airlines arrives at and then make a connection via that same major European airlines to our final destination, for 12 of the last 13 years, and have never had a problem except once when we chose to use NWA instead of a European airline and NWA cancelled our inter-European flight. Another story. We may be paying a higher price but we have piece of mind in knowing we will be getting to where we want to go for the initial price we paid and our baggage has always arrived with us. Guess we are just lucky.

we used ryan air for the first time last month on a flight from London Stansted to Kerry airport in Ireland. the flight cost something like £21 each but there were other costs involved. we pre-paid £25 for one 15-kilo checked-in bag which would have been 50 if done in the airport; we paid an extra £5 each to have pre-assigned seats - they said as long as you have a paid ticket, you would have a seat but the seats may be far apart; they were offering priority boarding but with an extra charge which we nixed. they asked if we wanted insurance or a reduced bus fare to the airport, which we also nixed.

I read over and over again their rules especially the baggage dimensions and weight for carry-on and checked bag, the check-in process, required arrival at the airport, etc etc.; we took the national express bus at victoria station to stansted and arrived 2 hrs before the flight. the flight was delayed by 40 minutes - the original aircraft had a problem and we were waiting for another aircraft from somewhere. I don't remember that we were herded like cattle. we thought it was a very smooth flight and, in fact, amazed that they had available aircraft ready to fly in from somewhere.

I haven't flown Ryan mainly because I don't use discount carriers within Europe, so far that is. Flying with Jet Blue and Southwest I've done numerous times in the past 20 years or so...great seats esp on Jet Blue.. That cattle car feeling is what Southwest used to pride itself on in the way in which it advertised itself. No issues with Southwest or Jet Blue here.

Every time I have flown with Ryanair, seating was kind of first come, first served. Seats were not assigned, your position in the line determined how much choice you had. People traveling together merely needed to be standing together to get seats together (unless they were way back in the line). Anyway, the flights are never more than an hour or two. Would it really kill you to sit apart for that long? I wouldn't ever pay extra for seating.

Ryanair now allocate seat numbers at check-in. You can also pay in advance for seat reservation, the price depends on the route flown.

I've sat separate from my husband flying from London back to Halifax (he was back 3 rows on the other side of the plane - and would have been further if I had not changed seats with another lady who wanted to sit with her husband a few rows ahead) - a 6+ hour flight. I suppose I could have asked someone to switch, but I guess after 3 weeks of constant 24 hr togetherness, I didn't mind...lol.

I've never used Ryanair for inter-Europe flights. I find good prices with Brit Air (we had a flight to Venice for I think $160 total for two a few years back. I figure by the time Ryan dings you for all the extras, not to mention the sometimes out of the way airports, my time is worth more then saving a few bucks. But that being said, if I lived in Europe and was taking long weekend trips and only carrying a small bag, I'd most likely be using on of the budget airlines...(I do have an issue with the way Ryan's CEO talks about it's customers - so they would be my last resort - I'd rather give my money to a company that 'on the surface' appreciates it's customers instead of talking about them like they were dumb animals...)

there was another reason for getting pre-assigned seats. with pre-assigned seats, we could check-in online 30 days before the flight which meant we were still at home with my computer and printer. without pre-assigned seats, check-in online was 7 days to 2 hrs before flight and we would already have been on the road travelling at that time. I was afraid we would be wasting time looking for an internet café for a printer. I always have my laptop but printing would have been a problem.

oh and btw, nothing was served on the flight, not even water. so we bought a 3 euro bottle of water, which was not too bad.

Things have apparently changed since my last flight with them, then (just over a year ago). I checked in before leaving home for my trip, during that 30 day window. My Ryanair flight from Glasgow to Barcelona was a week later, and seats were not assigned.

I agree Ryanair have a reputation to flying to "any old strip of concrete in the middle of nowhere so long as it is cheap", Before Ryanair arrived many were small private landing strips on former ex-nato air bases which therefore had long heavy-duty runways. (allegedly-)Frankfurt Hahn is a prime example. It is nearer to Luxembourg. There are many other examples.

But Stansted is not one of them. Stansted is one of London's official airports, built to take the overflow from Heathrow and Gatwick. It is no further from Central London than Gatwick, and has a good rail shuttle service to London. One problem with all cheap airlines is that they like to use their planes as much as possible. So the first flight of the day takes off as soon as the overnight flying ban ends (usually at 6 am). With a 2-hour check-in this means you have to get to the airport around 4 am. Even if the airport trains are running that early, any feader trains or buses are not.