Ryanair Captain sacked for comments on TV programme

[alycidon]

I see that Ryanair Captain Goss has been fired for comments he made on a recent TV programme, which he presumably felt were the true facts of the case - relative to the amount of fuel taken on by pilots for specific flights.

I watched some of the programme, but turned off after ten minutes or so because of the appalling way in which Michael O'Leary and his chums presented themselves.They really did look like a bunch of cowboys, and scarcely believable as people at the top of Ryanair.

I've made a mental note not to fly with Ryanair, although having never flown in my life, I don't really think that I shall now take it up at the age of seventy.

[PJPJ]

...and scarcely believable as people at the top of Ryanair.

Have flown with them but the once, and never again, it is believable, believe me.

[Roehre]

I pledged never to fly with Ryanair

[gradus]

Ryanair are simply awful when things go wrong and cancellations are made. Talk about fend for yourself, in my experience the attitude of Ryanair staff is little short of disgraceful and is the direct responsibility of the directors and senior managers. How I wish that they could be called to account. Not every Ryanair passenger is a young fit backpacker. Seeing elderly people left stranded late at night when Ryanair cancelled a flight without the slightest show of concern - in fact quite the opposite - for the plight of the people booked with them riled me then and it still does now.

[Richard Tarleton]

Apologies if this ode to Ryanair has been on before.

[gradus]

The funniest thing I've seen in ages, thanks so much for posting it.

[DracoM]

Ryanair are a disgrace to Ireland, and they have singlehandedly manufactured a barrel-scraping level of service, marketing lies about the REAL costs of taking a flight with them. They have brought huge discredit on the whole low-cost airline business, and inside the industry they are a by-word for management by bullying.

And Fascinating Aida have hit the nail smack on the head.

[Dave2002]

I've made a mental note not to fly with Ryanair, although having never flown in my life, I don't really think that I shall now take it up at the age of seventy.

You're missing out on several of life's "experiences"!

I have flown with Ryanair several times, and also EasyJet. I can't say I enjoy flying a great deal, so problems are not always down to the airline. Flying is for many a means to an end, and perhaps it is sometimes worthwhile. I agree that the "would you like a spoon to eat/drink your soup? - that'll be £10" business model is pretty shoddy, but Ryanair isn't the only firm to do this, though perhaps it's one that does it most consistently. As far as I know, they do have good aircraft, and indeed started a buy from new policy years ago. Maybe most airlines now buy new, though in the past some airlines operated "hand me downs" from other companies.

[jean]

Anyone remember Dan-Air? Their planes always looked as if they were about to drop to pieces.

I was always lucky with Ryanair until last March, when a flight to Malaga was delayed by seven hours.

Trying to get some compensation has been quite a saga (but we haven't given up yet!)

[Nick Armstrong]

Never flown RyanAir, largely because their base here is inconvenient, and I've never needed to get anywhere where they provided the best option - plus I've never liked the 'cut' of their jib.

However on short-flights to Europe, I like the 'no frills' model. On a flight of an hour or so to a place like France or Italy with all their food and drink delights, who the hell wants or needs to eat or drink on the plane?! I'd far rather pay the minimum possible and just get from A to B without messing around. I've used EasyJet many times and have always been impressed with them, they deliver just what I want.

[pastoralguy]

The funniest thing I've seen in ages, thanks so much for posting it.

[Richard Tarleton]

Never flown RyanAir

However on short-flights to Europe, I like the 'no frills' model.

I'd far rather pay the minimum possible and just get from A to B without messing around. I've used EasyJet many times and have always been impressed with them, they deliver just what I want.

Likewise. EasyJet just fine. It's the difference between a business model which attempts to be nice to its customers, and one which, just when you think things couldn't get any worse, comes up with new ways to be horrible to them.

[jean]

I wish I could find something less dismissive about Opera North's productiuon of Rossini's L'Occasione fa il Ladro than this:

Christopher Alden's production starts promisingly with a clever conceit about a plane crash and a carousel delivering passengers wrong suitcases...

I thought it was tremendous fun.

[remdataram]

We have flown Gatwick to Cork and Gatwick to Shannon on Ryanair many times without a problem.

Ryanair may appear to be as popular as Ed Miliband, the fact is that it has become Europe's biggest airline. If all the criticism is to be believed then we can only conclude that Michael O'Leary and co have achieved this feat by flying empty aircraft!

We've flown Aer Lingus Gatwick to Dublin (one flight a day) and found them to be excellent; but there's no point in running an excellent airline when you don't even provide routes to Cork, Shannon, and Kerry (your base Country!) from Gatwick. Ryanair can achieve near full aircraft three times a day to Cork and Shannon.

Naturally BA don't provide a service either. We do fly BA to Italy and EasyJet to Switzerland; both are fine but the only differentiator with Ryanair is the check-in experience. I for one am glad Ryanair have opened up routes all over Europe at prices (despite the 'extras') that people can afford.

It's rather like MacDonalds, everyone hates them and knows the 'food' is bad for them; but, somehow, they're the most popular 'restaurants' in the world.

[Dave2002]

Likewise. EasyJet just fine. It's the difference between a business model which attempts to be nice to its customers, and one which, just when you think things couldn't get any worse, comes up with new ways to be horrible to them.

I've never had a really serious problem with either EasyJet or RynaAir, or indeed with some other cheap airlines - such as Norwegian, GermanWings etc. However, where things can go quite badly wrong is with interaction with other airlines - the "air transport system". For example, if a golf enthusiast takes his/her golf clubs on a plane, with a return flight back to (say) Gatwick, and then has another flight booked with a low cost airline on the same day. Also, suppose (hypothetically!) that the golfer lives only a few miles from LGW, and it should be easy to take the golf kit home and then return to LGW, but the incoming flights are delayed several hours making this impossible. There may be no alternative but to book the golf kit onto the low cost flight - there and back, and the additional charges are very considerable. I believe this can run in to several hundred pounds.

I may not have remembered the scenario exactly, but it's something like that. In the past I think the major airlines would have acted cooperatively so as not to disadvantage the passenger, but the low cost airlines -including specifically EasyJet - do not play by those kind of rules.

I don't play golf, and one could argue that it's just too bad that those with expensive hobby pursuits should on occasion be forced to pay a bit more if things go wrong for them. However, I don't want to indulge in such schadenfreude.

Some of Leary's (Ryanair) ideas - such as standing passenger "seats" are just plain mad. I wonder why he hasn't thought of giving all the passengers injections to put them to sleep for the duration of the flight, and then transporting them in cardboard coffins. He is innovative though, and by exploiting EU rules he has undoubtedly changed the economies of some regions, even though the EU rules have now changed to prevent or mitigate some of his activities.