A Friendly Warning: Do NOT Fly on RyanAir

Photo Credit: Telegraph

I wanted to share my experience traveling with my two friends on RyanAir. RyanAir claims to be a budget friendly airline that flies to many destinations around Europe. However, they have hidden fees EVERYWHERE and from my experience, their goal is to get every dime out of you on one trip, without care to whether or not you'll ever fly with them again. I sincerely cannot imagine anyone flying with them more than once. Although I'm going to share with you what happened to my friend on a flight from Sevilla to Barcelona, we witnessed many other passengers on the same flight go through the same thing. Even if it hadn't been my friend, seeing it happen to strangers would have been enough to deter me from flying with them ever again.

Why? RyanAir does not have Customer Service Representatives. They have bullies. 

Photo Credit: Ruthann

As you know, when you're traveling, you don't usually have access to a printer unless you go to a print/copy/shipping shop. Almost all airlines are aware of this, and while you can print your boarding pass before coming to the airport, they can supply you with one at the check in desk.

RyanAir does not do this. In fact, they have a scheme set up to ensure that people who have not a printed copy of their ticket will have to desperately shell out big bucks to get on the flight.

Both of my travel companions did not have a printed copy of their boarding passes. One had saved hers on her iPad to show at the gate, as she had done in the past for other airlines. The other had only booked her flight days before and did not realize it would be necessary to print it out. I had booked my ticket before flying to Europe and had printed it. Since one of my friends had the PDF version on the ticket on her iPad, she was able to find a service desk in the airport to print it out.

My other friend was not so lucky. Although she had checked into her flight online the day before, she did not print out her ticket. When she got to the check in desk, she was informed that RyanAir CUTS OFF ACCESS to printing tickets 4 hours before flights depart and that she would have to pay 77 Euros ($100 USD) to print out the ticket. After a long battle with the check in attendent and RyanAir customer service (both of which showed no empathy and seemed quite used to the situation), she ended up having to pay the fee or risk being stranded in a city where she knew no one. By the way, the flight only cost 54 Euros.

Later, at the boarding gate, the attendants measured almost everyone's carryon. You could not take a purse, if you had one, it was to be placed in your carry on baggage. Therefore, people had to take clothing out of their suitcase, and put it on to board the plane.  EasyJet has the same 1 carry on rule. They do not humiliate people the way RyanAir does.

Overall, the airline left an awful taste in my mouth. Just don't fly with them. You will regret it. I recommend EasyJet or Vuelling Airlines, as well as other airlines on edreams.net.

Best of luck in your travels,

Danielle