Ryanair "No Frills - No Flights"

How can Ryanair get away with treating their customers like sheep ?

A group of 24 flew from Shannon to Bristol at the weekend, our flight home on Sunday was cancelled, we were given no explanation as to why the flight was cancelled and no information was given as to what our options were. The lady who was employed by Servisair proceeded to re-book people on the Monday flight from Bristol and after about 3 hours announced that this flight was full. She then proceeded to put people on other flights from Gatwick and East Midlands UK the following day.

To our disgust we discovered whilst 7 of us were waiting in Gatwick Airport on Monday that the first 13 of our Group had landed in Shannon from Bristol, in a plane that was only 2 thirds full. 4 out of our Group had to re-book flights with Aerlingus from Heathrow to Shannon at a cost of €250.00 euro each as they had no option but to reach Shannon on Sunday night ! This money will not be re-imbursed by Ryanair.

So Ryanair changed our flight from Bristol to Gatwick for no reason whatsoever only through incompetence. We had the added expense of taxi transfer and hotel accommodation overnight plus the stress of it all, loosing a days work & wages and not arriving in Shannon airport until 26 hours later. How are they allowed to get away with this.

We were not provided with any refreshements during this 6 hour wait in queue at Bristol.

Some of the group had insurance others not, so maybe some of our extra costs will be refunded but it will be interesting to see how much we will get back !

Can anyone tell me who we can contact to complain and raise this with ? It is simply a disgrace that we were treated the way we were, we felt invisible and left in limbo.

I do hope that Mr. Tony O'Leary sees this post ! and I can assure him that we will not accept this treatment, I wonder what the Aviation Regulator will have to say about this ?

Acctran said:

Can anyone tell me who we can contact to complain and raise this with ?

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The Aviation Regulator or the National Consumer Agency perhaps?

Thanks will contact them.

Acctran said:

I do hope that Mr. Tony O'Leary sees this post !

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Is he any relation of Michael?

Tony / Michael whatever his name is ? He and the Company he represents would want to rethink their customer service strategies

Acctran said:

Tony / Michael whatever his name is ? He and the Company he represents would want to rethink their customer service strategies

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He doesn't have a customer service strategy, or rather...he does...but it is that there should be no service!! "Customers" pay for a flight, and as long as nothing goes wrong, you can take comfort from teh fact that it was cheap! But if it does go wrong, they simply do not want to know. Their sole purpose is not to provide a flight service, but to run a business and extract as much revenue as possible, ...and their product is selling flights. It is always a gamble flying with Ryanair - if it goes OK, fine, if it doesn't, you're stuffed! Cheap seats are fine, but you also pay for bags, credit card payments, drinks etc, in fact ANYTHING that can be used to squeeze a few more bucks out of you.

Re your own case, you are understandably angry, and rightly so, but my recommendation would be to stand back and be philosophical about it. By all means, complain away, but just think how many others before you have been treated in teh same way, and Ryanair are still going strong. Read the small print - I'm sure it exonerates them from EVERYTHING!!

And finally, after all I've said, and I've had bad experiences with them before (but not as bad as yours!), I'm still booked to fly with them again this summer! I've got loads of insurance though!

Hi Acctran,
I had a similar experience. You can only contact the Ryan air complaints department by post. I sent them a complaint, receipts etc and received a reply by email, saying that the technical fault of their plane was outside their control and as such they were not compensating...

I also contacted the aviation authority re. my rights - see below:

In terms of your query, Regulation 261/2004 sets out the following rights and entitlements of passengers in the event of a long flight delay (two hours or more, depending upon the length of the flight):

• Information: the operating air carrier (OAC) shall display at check in a notice informing passengers of their rights in the event of denied boarding, cancellation or a long delay. It shall also provide each passenger affected by a delay of at least two hours with a written notice setting out the rules for assistance in line with the Regulation. Meals and refreshments shall be offered free of charge and in reasonable relation to the waiting time. Hotel accommodation shall be provided where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary, as well as transport between the hotel and the place of accommodation. Communications: passengers shall be offered free of charge two telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails. Reimbursement: where the flight delay is at least five hours, passengers shall be offered reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket at the price at which it was bought. This applies where the passenger decides not to travel as a result of the delay – it is not possible to travel and also claim reimbursement.
• Please note that under the terms of the Regulation, financial compensation is payable only in cases of flight cancellation or denied boarding, and not in cases of flight delay.

The care and assistance outlined in the Regulation must always be provided, regardless of the reason for the delay. You should address your complaint in the first instance to Ryanair, and I would advise you to seek reimbursement of any expenses you incurred by way of meals, telephone calls etc, including receipts. In the event that you are not satisfied with their response, you may lodge a complaint with the relevant national enforcement body. As you may be aware, the Regulation specifies that each Member State designate a national enforcement body to be responsible for flights departing from airports on its territory as well as flights arriving into such airports from non-EU states where the airline involved is a community carrier. So, for example, this Office is responsible for all flights departing from Irish airports, and flights into these airports from non-EU countries where the air carrier is licensed in the EU. As the flight you complain of departed from a German Airport, the Luftfahrt Bundesamt is the appropriate enforcement body.

I had a flight cancelled on me the minute I arrived to check in.

A sum of 175 e ( i cant remeber exactly the sum ) or the next avaialable flight ot nearest ( within reasonable ) were offered.

I ws flying to liverpool, they offered a flight to Manchester immediately, a flight to Lpool at end of day or the cash.

I seriosuly thought about resheduling the trip as the cash was a reasonable sum.

This was all outloined in a Ryanir doc I was given by their desk. They were very proactive about it. This was Dublin airport. Perhaps they are better equipped to deal with their own cust care requirments in some airports and try and stuff you in others.

Thanks everyone for the replies, I have calmed down a bit since Monday but it is so frustrating that they can get away with it.

Luckily we had our credit card with us, otherwise we would have been sleeping in the Airport with no food/drink etc. for over 20 hours.

Re : Information: the operating air carrier (OAC) shall display at check in a notice informing passengers of their rights in the event of denied boarding, cancellation or a long delay.

This didn't happen - we were given no information at all !!

I did have insurance thank god so I will hopefull get some money back.

I have also contacted the Aviation Authority, so we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Its true what Oopsbuddy says its a gamble flying with Ryanair, if only I'd know before I booked ! Won't make that mistake again.

wasnt Joe Duffy created just for this reason? RTE would love any chance to bash ryanair!

Just one point that may be useful to know - If you are delayed by more than 4 hours even on Ryanair you are entitled to a free meal under the regulations. If they did not do this then they must compensate you. Not much help for your trouble & you may have to take the matter to the airline regulatory authority before they pay up.