Ryanair changed my flight times and they don't suit me

It's a bit pointless saying "I will never fly Aer LIngus again" as it could happen with any airline.

I presume that there is no independent analysis of which is the most reliable.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Are flight times so reliable that one can book a hire car where the office closes within 2 hours of your arrival and if you miss that, you also miss your accommodation.

Forget about flight schedule changes, flights are often delayed more than 2 hours.

If Aer Lingus had not changed the flight, but it was delayed 2 hours anyway, she would have been snookered.

Brendan

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With a flight number in your booking, some car hire companies would allow for flight delays in airport locations and remain opened for some time.

Premos said:

With a flight number in your booking, some car hire companies would allow for flight delays in airport locations and remain opened for some time.

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This is the type of information which would be very useful in a Key Post.

I think I suggested it earlier in the thread, that a Key Post on booking flights a long time in advance would be very helpful.

Any takers?

You don't need to know everything. Just post it and any mistakes or useful extra information like this will be added to it or edited.

Brendan

Here is a standard email from Ryanair about a schedule change and my options in this case was only to accept the change by clicking on the link:

Last March there was a different issue and we got this email from Ryanair:

Dear Bronte,

due to a technical error, some flights have appeared on the Ryanair App/website as cancelled. Please be advised, this is an error and your flight will operate as scheduled. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

This one is where Ryanair allowed us more options (I assume the change of time was significant)

Hello Bronte

We’re sorry to inform you that there has been a time change to your Ryanair booking. Please find new details of your flight(s) below. If you’re travelling with others, please inform them of the changes. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.

However, you now have several options you can avail of, including accepting the new departure time, changing your flight for free, or applying for a full refund of the cost of your ticket.

For more details on your options, please see below.

Option 1 was to accept.

The above was in November last year, and I noted at the time that Ryanair were more restrictive on the change of flight option to one day before or one day after.

Also of note is that refunds were pretty much immediate. In stark contrast to my EU 261 refund.

Aer Lingus:

Brendan Burgess said:

Are flight times so reliable that one can book a hire car where the office closes within 2 hours of your arrival and if you miss that, you also miss your accommodation.

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I always feel that I don't want to book a hire car or coach/private transfer to my destination because there can be flight changes or delays. I usually rely on local public transport or taxi from outside terminal.

I choose flights that are leaving mid morning or lunch time so that I can arrive mid afternoon at my destination. Check in in most hotels is from 3.p.m. These flight times are usually more expensive.

Unfortunately, now I can no longer rely on the airline to do what they say they will do when I make my reservation. Schedules can be changed after the airline has taken my money and confirmed my reservation. Flight delays are becoming increasingly common.

As a result, I find that I am looking more closely at my holiday destination. How far from the airport, 24 hour reception in hotel, that sort of thing.

I have booked flights for next April and next May. Spain and Portugal. Both schedules have been changed already but I have not received any email about this, so I can do nothing until I receive this email.

I was looking at flights and hotels to book for next March this morning. Black Friday sales will be coming up next week. I would be happy to book the hotel end but not the Ryanair end because of what might happen between now and departure time. It is only a 4 night break. I will wait until after Christmas before looking at the Ryanair flight times because I feel that I cannot trust them and also because if changes are made they are too difficult to communicate with.

My friendly notification from Ryanair in respect of next January's flight to the sun:

Flight was booked early last February, the notification below was received in mid-September after they had finalised their winter schedule.

Hello Marsupial, me old flower.

We’re sorry to inform you that there has been a time change to your Ryanair booking. Please note that as a result of this time change your flight(s) may depart on a different date than originally booked. Please find new details of your flight(s) below. If you’re travelling with others, please inform them of the changes. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. However, you now have several options you can avail of, including:

• accepting the new departure time,
• changing your flight for free,
• or applying for a full refund of the cost of your ticket.

For more details on your options, please see below.

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The timetable change was 5½ hours. It suited us one way and didn't the other way. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

Marsupial said:

Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

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Why would you be happy to accept swings and roundabouts? Ryanair should not be in the swings and roundabouts game.

Laramie said:

I always feel that I don't want to book a hire car or coach/private transfer to my destination because there can be flight changes or delays.

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We always book the hire car with free cancellation. I generally do that too for accommodation at either end. But for one week/two week holidays, we fly in a day before so that we make sure the non cancellable accommodation is ok. So for example next month we have a one week, non refundable booked Sat to Sat. But we are flying out on the Thursday. And we don't fly back on Sat either we fly the next day. I haven't booked that Sat night (good reminder this) but we have booked a hotel in a city for the 2 first nights. This takes a lot of stress out of it for us, I realise not everybody has our flexibility. But I find trying to fly in on one day, generally a Saturday, and get to a location can be horrendous if you are going far from the airport. For December there is the added problem of the season. And on top of that is the weather, so we left ourselves 2 days to get there. Coming back we don't care what they do with the flights.

Many of the hire companies not only allow free cancellation, but will accommodate a time or date change.

And I will never book a hire company that is not well known after a very bad experience in Portugal one time. (a clear set up)

Bronte said:

But for one week/two week holidays, we fly in a day before so that we make sure the non cancellable accommodation is ok.

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We have been doing the same....why?..........to accommodate the airlines and their ever changing schedules.

It is sad that we have got to the stage where we have to add an extra day on the front and end of our holidays to lessen the stress.

Grizzly said:

It is sad that we have got to the stage where we have to add an extra day on the front and end of our holidays to lessen the stress.

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It's the price to be paid for low cost flight model where flying is cheaper than a train. The alternative is far fewer flight options that are much more expensive.

Grizzly said:

We have been doing the same....why?..........to accommodate the airlines and their ever changing schedules.

It is sad that we have got to the stage where we have to add an extra day on the front and end of our holidays to lessen the stress.

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As we are very frequent fliers I cannot say I do things to accommodate airlines.

- Ryanair are generally on time
- Since they arrived 2 decades ago on time has a whole new meaning, I remember many times delays with Aer Lingus and enjoying a few hours of hospitality in the lounge. A novelty for me, but an annoyance for my husband and his colleagues who travelled frequently for business.
- Ryanair are cheap, they revolutionised our options
- One cannot, especially in an Irish context, expect to get from Mayo to Dublin, to get to Malaga and then on to costa Z in one day without stress. - One can mitigate it by going to Dublin and paying for one of the many airport hotels, or go to Swords/Malahide (we have done all of this) . Some of the hotels offer, for a fee, parking.
- If the flight is at the ungodly hour of 6 am I refuse to fly. Pick another destination or pay more for a better time.
- As we are abroad we do not always have the Ryanair options. The price of our Dec flights are massive in comparison to what we normally pay as it is not a low cost carrier.
- Were Ryanair horrific, absolutely, I saw some terrible treatment of people. But it's not just them. Good luck with getting a trolley at Edinburgh airport. And woe betide you if you need a taxi from their at staff changeover times. Dublin airport hates Ryanair - they put them right down the end of the departure hall, they don't have enough staff at security and the security staff are pretty damn rude, shouting at people etc. The departure gates are miles away and there are not enough seats for everybody. (I've other airport examples but rather not say)
- Never make the mistake of using a low cost to catch another flight. Having said that one of us flies in long haul next week to Dublin and I warned them to get the much later connecting flight here as you just could not risk it (they listened)
- I don't recall being able to just hop on a plane from Dublin to London/Paris/Rome at the drop of a hat. For the fares that now exist. It was an even worse trek to Dublin back in the day of 5/6 hour buses to Dublin and another bus to the airport.

This thread has a lot of people who forget what it was like.

The costs have gone down as we make our own bookings, separately for everything. Do people really want to go back to package holidays. And were they actually any better. Because I remember some ungodly hours of flights.

Laramie said:

Why would you be happy to accept swings and roundabouts? Ryanair should not be in the swings and roundabouts game.

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Because I cheerfully accept that that's the risk that I must take when booking my flights 11 months in advance. If I wished to act like John Cleese in Clockwise, then I probably wouldn't book my flights until two hours before they taxied to the runway.
(And even then, I'd probably need to call up the Union head honchos in Nimes to ensure that their members weren't planning another strike either later that day or on the day when I planned to return home!)

Bronte said:

Here is a standard email from Ryanair about a schedule change and my options in this case was only to accept the change by clicking on the link:

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This may be covered already in this thread or in another thread but my cursory search didn't unearth it . .

I got the 'Accept Flight [Time] Change' email this week for a January flight. It's a minor change so makes little odds to me. Methinks I have the option to not click anything and that I'm still on the flight if I don't. Does that sound right?

My thinking is that they may make multiple adjustments the flight time over the coming weeks and if I accept each change I would have limited/no options re refunds or compensation as the number of hours will be calculated from my last 'accepted' flight time . . thinking that not clicking 'accept flight change' will mean that any calculations (perhaps even delays) will be calculated from the original flight time.

michaelm said:

My thinking is that they may further adjust the flight time over the coming weeks and if I accept each change I would have limited/no options re refunds or compensation as the number of hours will be calculated from my last 'accepted' flight time . . thinking that not clicking 'accept flight change' will mean that any calculations (perhaps even delays) will be calculated from the original flight time.

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Excellent point.

michaelm said:

thinking that not clicking 'accept flight change' will mean that any calculations (perhaps even delays) will be calculated from the original flight time

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I got one with a 10 minute change, but it's 10 minutes earlier.

If you don't accept the change, you won't get a new boarding pass, I'm guessing they might not allow you to board with the incorrect one.

In any case, I like that they seem to now be communicating changes in a very clear manner, the email I received was very clear with nice graphics showing the old and new times side by side.

This has happened to me now also. I booked a flight 2 weeks ago with a departure from Dublin in late June. The departure was to be at 10am from Dublin. I just got notification to say its been changed to 07.45 and as we are over 2hrs from the airport this now means we pretty much have to stay up all night to catch the flight. I could have booked the day before or day after but specifically booked it the day we did as it had 10am departure which was ideal for us and we have booked our accommodation so don't want the hassle of changing that now.
I can't help but think is a sinister move by Ryanair to get people to book on the basis of a nice flight time and then change the time to less convenient for most people knowing that most people we have to stick with the flight.