Fees For Being "Stupid" - Inspired by O Leary

ectoraige

Plazaman wrote: »

I'm sure there are plenty of other service industries we could apply a "stupid" fee.

A "stupid" fee for people who queue at an ATM without taking out their card.

A "stupid" fee for people at the supermarket checkout who run off "just for a second" to get whatever items they forgot.

A "stupid" fee for customers in restaurants who ask if a particular thing on the menu is "good".

keith16

What an absolute **** storm....is it really that hard to book a flight and print out a boarding pass? I honestly don't know how some people are able to dress themselves in the morning.

If this woman goes on twitter to complain about Ryanair, then MOL has every right to use any public forum he wants to reply.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

davet82 wrote: »

i got caught out by this, i lost mine in the airport in a taxi. they will not let you re-print them via the website 3 hours before your flight.

aer lingus will print them for you free of charge

the cost to ryan air for doing this service is a sheet of paper and milimetre of ink and for the print button to be pressed.

5 euro would be enough to charge for a mistake

Yeah but its 55 euro off the cost of my flight, so go nuts.

keith16

Einhard wrote: »

Savvy people make mistakes too. It's wonderful though, to see that so many people on AH have yet to make mistakes in their lives. Hats off.

People do make mistakes in life. All the time. However, forgetting to print out your boarding pass for a Ryanair flight shouldn't be one of them. To me, it would be akin to leaving the house with no pants on.

Latchy

keith16 wrote: »

If this woman goes on twitter to complain about Ryanair, then MOL has every right to use any public forum he wants to reply.

Twitter is the 21 century bitch feast for everybody to ...well ...Bitch .

It's not ( thankfully) exclusive to the MOL's of this world who of course have the same right to Bitch .

keith16

ectoraige wrote: »

A "stupid" fee for people who queue at an ATM without taking out their card.

A "stupid" fee for people at the supermarket checkout who run off "just for a second" to get whatever items they forgot.

A "stupid" fee for customers in restaurants who ask if a particular thing on the menu is "good".

Our economic woes would be obliterated!

IRLConor

Einhard wrote: »

Nothing to do with my point that a £380 sanction is unnecessarily punitive.

I suspect that one of the reasons the fees are so large is to generate stories like these. How much would he have to spend running ads to remind people to bring their boarding pass with them? This way, he'll get a story in the papers at least every 6 months or so about how Ryanair have stung someone for a ridiculous amount for some trivial infraction or other. Then he can wade in and fan the flames a bit to make sure there's optimal coverage. The net result is that he makes money from advertising his company's policies, something which would otherwise cost him serious money.

The underlying message he wants to send: "Do your homework, be organised, don't delay us and don't force us to expend any extra effort on you. If you step outside that we'll punish you with fees until you either learn or stop flying with us."

Me personally, I've never had any issues with Ryanair but that's only because I refuse to fly with them. There are plenty of other airlines and the difference in price between them and Ryanair is usually pretty small when you calculate the full cost of getting to your ultimate destination if you shop around and plan your flights carefully.

Mr Benevolent

He's the man. Print your boarding cards. That is all.

Wade in the Sea

The best solution is just don't fly Ryanair. It is rarely that much more to fly with another airline and you don't have to worry about all the crap trying to get on the plane, Finding a seat next to the people you are travelling with, the carpet bagging staff, and best of all you actually land at an airport that is actually close to where you wanted to be.

efb

I booked flights with Ryanair that I never used- not bothered Whinging about refunds- I know the rules.

JustAThought

I've travelled to places all over Europe with Ryanair for less than the cost of a return train to Cork.

Airlingus would still be charging their old extortionist prices if O"Leary hadn't had the balls to break the back of their extortionist monopoly . Remember the bad old days of the 18 hour boat & bus to the UK at £80 a go; that was because Aer Lungus was charging minimum £260 Apex fare IF you could get one. Once there was competition this suddenly radically transformed.
Every time you travel with are lingus you'rs still paying extra to subsidised their cheep flights for employees, employees children, retired employees, & their buddy system.

The woman who is trying to extort " compo" for her mistake from o" Leary deserves what she's got ; if she can't play fair : and let's face if everybody knows the rules; then pay the full fares with Aer Swindlus. she remembered to print them on her way out. Why should the rest of us subsidise her mistake ; as usual .

O Leary may not have been polite but he was right . You don't hear him whinging on twitter because a radio show tried to do a hatchet job on him & repeatedly allowed a listener to call him a pig .

The prices are cheep with Ryanair. The flights are always on time. They link with cheep reliable coaches to the cities you' re going to & they NEVER cancel flights. & leave you ******~ like Aer Swindlus consistently do.

Want to miss an international from Heathrow, or be delayed 8 hours or overnight at the end of a longhaul-then book Aer Lingus ; cancelling is their speciality.
Ryanair might have T&Cs but they're fully available & transparent and you are constantly prompted to read them as you book.

& You can save your boarding pass & print as many copies as you like. You are responsible for & don't forget your passport. Same way; you are responsible for & dont forget your boarding pass. Simples.

ctrl-alt-delete

Higher wrote: »

Already printers there and as said you can't check in 3 hours before your flight.

You can save your tickets as a .pdf file and email it to yourself though. If you haven't checked in 3 hours before your flight, you don't deserve to be let on.

ctrl-alt-delete

Just to add, I love how people are so quick to blame Ryanair for their own stupidity,

The last Ryanair flight I was on I boarded using the back door, took my seat and not long after i hear a male voice berating the stewardess.

He was giving out to her for the fact that there was a rope that he had to step over on his way onto the plane, that it was very dangerous and that somebody could get hurt.

I quickly realised he was talking about the barrier they erect to stop people going under the wing when making their way to the back stairs, when she realised and informed him of this he quickly shut up and made his way down the cabin. Had a good laugh about that incident.

Tantan1305

In fairness there are T&C and she was wrong for not printing the passes.

But if it happened to me I wouldn't be able to afford to pay the fee - it would either leave us with little spending money or if its the return journey I'd be left ringing around famly members for help. It's hard enough to get money up for a holiday. One standard fee for the whole family should of been charged.

hardCopy

Red Alert wrote: »

Fees are great for preventing time-wasters wasting everyone else's time. I would also add on:

€10 for use of the onboard toilet on flights under one hour.
€20 for those who do not put all their metals into their carry on bag prior to security.
€50 for those who do not have their liquids / laptop removed prior to security.
€50 for those whose bags have a prohibited item that needs to be removed.
€100 per extra child to discourage those travelling with more than 1 child per adult.
€200 for those without a printed boarding pass, or smartphone on which to show their boarding pass.

Don't forget forty bazillion for the guy who won't move out of the aisle and let others pass while he puts his bag overhead in row 4. There's a special corner of hell set aside for him.

Smidge

krudler wrote: »

I always print two copies, keep one in my bag and the other on me.

Oh wise one do you have any more jewels for us?





from a person who was caught out not only for the boarding pass charge but also extra weight in baggage(first time i flew with them I may add:o)

gobnaitolunacy

Flew Jetstar recently, a low cost airline down under....,had NO facilities for printing as I was on the road and the boarding card only pops into your email 24hrs before departure...the machine for self-printing cards was on the blink...expected a Ryanair type penalty system, what a surprise, pleasant staff, even under pressure as they were. Boarding card printed for me (well more of a shopping receipt type thing). No in your face visual ads and annoying sh1te over the PA. No worries and a pleasure to fly with.... even tho some Aussies still whinge about them.

Goes to show that a low cost airline need not be cnutish and unpleasant to deal with.

event

faceman wrote: »

I'm normally in the pro O'Leary camp but this time round I'm not

The whole "tough, it's in the T&C's" argument is face palm stuff. If it was in the T&C's that if you forget to print your boarding card you'll get beaten up, would that be ok?
Just because it's in the T&C'S doesn't make something fair or right.

Also the argument that having people reprint boarding cards will hold up and delay flights is crap too. It didn't hold up flights before the policy was introduced, why would it hold up flights if the policy was scrapped?

Also the cost of additional staff is nonsense too. Take Dublin airport for example. If you don't have your boarding card you don't go to the check in desk. You go to what I call the "Uh oh desk". It's the ryanair desk (thats always manned) you have to go to if you have to pay for anything like overweight bags etc before you check in.

While nothing Ryanair have done in this instance is illegal, it is highly unethical in my opinion. If they have an unethical practice in what has become an issue in the big domain, what other areas are their their question marks over?

Make no mistake, the charge is there not for anyone's benefit except the shareholders.

if you agreed to those T&C's then yes, yes it would

JustAThought

Michael O'Leary broke the back of a highly unionised monopoly that had been running a closed shop and screwing it's passengers under a shamrock flag for years.

We now have accessible cheep flights all over Europe thanks to his business model & his balls-y approach to business, & putting an end to the Aer lingus state sponsored monopoly and extortionist prices. Which you are still paying taxes to support.

What a pity he isn't paid to break some if the other monopolies and outrageous , wasteful , antiquated quangos & closed shop practices in this country. You can be sure we wouldn't be bankrupt and in debt for 3+ generations.

O; and the new terminal at Dublin airport that ran over cost by tens of millions & that they can't get retailers to buy into... He was right about that too.

The woman managed to print her boarding card on the way out. She knew the terms of flying. Don't go screaming for compo off our fees & flight costs because "you" forgot, despite knowing & despite the reminder emails, to print your boarding card on the way home. Priorities. I'm sure she remembered her handbag/passport/taxi.

O.and for all the have-a-go O'Leary bashers. Unlike a lot of other high profile busisnessmen, " artists", and successful Irish ; he pays & declares his taxes in this country and contributes back into our debt ridden economy this way too. Unlike many others who choose to be resident in other contries/tax havens.

( em sorry!! BTW I don't work for or know him personally! But fair is fair!)

Qualitymark

I can't understand why a paper boarding pass should be needed. Why can't you just save it to your phone or tablet?

Last couple of times I flew it was with Aer Lingus, and I just saved the reference number on my phone, and at the airport pressed a button on their machine and printed out the boarding pass. Still silly to have to have the paper pass, but not as silly as not being able to print it at all in the airport.

Ryanair used to be a cheap airline; Aer Lingus is now often cheaper for the same flights.

O'Leary is embarrassing; every time he does one of these loutish publicity stunts everyone in the world thinks this is how the typical Irish person behaves.

irishgeo

Every one is missing a huge point here. She didn't print her boarding passes for the return leg either so after been charged for the reprint of the outward journey she didn't bother to print them out for the return journey either.

Now that is stupidity of the highest order.

Qualitymark

irishgeo wrote: »

Every one is missing a huge point here. She didn't print her boarding passes for the return leg either so after been charged for the reprint of the outward journey she didn't bother to print them out for the return journey either.

Now that is stupidity of the highest order.

Not for someone who isn't used to Ryanair's arcane system, which differs from others. On Aer Lingus, for instance, you can't check in online and get a boarding pass unless you're within something like 48 or 72 hours of the flight.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

irishgeo wrote: »

Every one is missing a huge point here. She didn't print her boarding passes for the return leg either so after been charged for the reprint of the outward journey she didn't bother to print them out for the return journey either.

Now that is stupidity of the highest order.

No no, this WAS the return journey. She printed them out for the first leg, which means she knew what the story was to a certin extent. She then never got the return ones pritned out once over there. My guess is that she thought she'd show up at the airport and say "we never got a chance to print them out - it's been 15 days and we don't have internet" and think Ryanair would be more sympathetic.

Where she got THAT idea from, Heaven only knows.

As O'Leary says, she had 15 days, and there are presumably internet cafes in Allicante. Or someone with a printer. (It would also be interesting to see if there was any twitter activity on her account on those 15 days...)

SocSocPol

Qualitymark wrote: »

I can't understand why a paper boarding pass should be needed. Why can't you just save it to your phone or tablet?

Last couple of times I flew it was with Aer Lingus, and I just saved the reference number on my phone, and at the airport pressed a button on their machine and printed out the boarding pass. Still silly to have to have the paper pass, but not as silly as not being able to print it at all in the airport.

Ryanair used to be a cheap airline; Aer Lingus is now often cheaper for the same flights.

O'Leary is embarrassing; every time he does one of these loutish publicity stunts everyone in the world thinks this is how the typical Irish person behaves.

As someone who flies regularly I have yet to find Aer Lingus cheaper on any route that Ryanair flies.
Ryanair introduced cheap air travel to Ireland when Aer Lingus were screwing us royally.

Cee-Jay-Cee

It's a preet high price for forgetting to print aboarding pass but one thing is for sure, she will never forget to print them again. She has probably said she'll never use Ryanair again but she will.

As for MOLs response, ok he could have left out the word fu ck and still got the message through but yer one has some feckin neck looking to be compensated for her own stupidity. What is it with people nowadays that now look for compensation every time they're mildly inconvenienced!!

Yawns

She doesn't have the ability to print a boarding pass for a return flight, the first in which she had the ability to print the boarding pass. So judging from flight #1 she knows the rules about boarding passes. When she gets home she has the ability to use today's technology to have a hissy fit online and demand compensation, but people think MOL is the bad person here? I think he should have thrown a few more F's in personally.

Qualitymark

SocSocPol wrote: »

As someone who flies regularly I have yet to find Aer Lingus cheaper on any route that Ryanair flies.
Ryanair introduced cheap air travel to Ireland when Aer Lingus were screwing us royally.

They did.

But my experience is different - I've chosen cheaper Aer Lingus flights a couple of times recently.

How strange the rather English-tabloid-taxi-driver punitive vibe that's migrated into Ireland in the last ten years or so. Used to be we were kinder.

WhatNowForUs?

CJC999 wrote: »

It's a preet high price for forgetting to print aboarding pass but one thing is for sure, she will never forget to print them again. She has probably said she'll never use Ryanair again but she will.

As for MOLs response, ok he could have left out the word fu ck and still got the message through but yer one has some feckin neck looking to be compensated for her own stupidity. What is it with people nowadays that now look for compensation every time they're mildly inconvenienced!!

His response is perfect. Everybody in here now talking about how great he and his company is.

ShaunC

Daisy M wrote: »

I do not consider been asked to pay for her mistake anything similar to been treated like cattle, she wasn't herded into a trailer or barn and asked to eat silage, lets get some perspective here.:)
Obviously you are not a frequent flyer with Ryanair, I come from a farming background and have always likened travelling with Ryanair to moving livestock. You get them into a tight cattle pen an hour before the truck arrives then squeeze in as many as you can, and if any of them give you hassle you bate them with a stick:D
BTW I use Ryanair but don't pay for the stupid things like priority boarding. What idiots, there are about 220 seats on the plane and about 100 people pay priority boarding Wtf???

4zn76tysfajdxp

Qualitymark wrote: »

I can't understand why a paper boarding pass should be needed. Why can't you just save it to your phone or tablet?

Assuming everyone has a smartphone or tablet.

emo72

It really doesn't hurt to be nice. The world is a much nicer place when your polite.

You can have all the money in the world and still have no class.

heavyballs

MagicSean wrote: »

Daisy M wrote: »

The terms and conditions are there to read, you get an email prior to departure reminding you to check in, what more does the woman want? People complain about ryan air but they forget how much flights used to cost. When we lived in london 20 years ago it used to cost £300. sterling for 2 of us on a return flight to Ireland I have paid less for return flights to Spain with Ryanair for 5 people including all charges.

She might want to be treated like a human instead of cattle.

Exaggerate much?????

Jay D

Yep she's certainly dragging out her retard status for the world to see.

Feathers

MOL should operate an insurance style 'no claims bonus' style system: the first time you forget your boarding card/luggage is slightly overweight you get let off, but you get a black mark against your passport number in their DB.

After that, punitive charges get steeper with each offence. You can get a clean slate again with X number of flights without screwing something up.

Could keep the stupidity tax and keep the 'everyone makes mistakes' crowd happy.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Feathers wrote: »

MOL should operate an insurance style 'no claims bonus' style system: the first time you forget your boarding card/luggage is slightly overweight you get let off, but you get a black mark against your passport number in their DB.

After that, punitive charges get steeper with each offence. You can get a clean slate again with X number of flights without screwing something up.

Could keep the stupidity tax and keep the 'everyone makes mistakes' crowd happy.

But then the flights for those of us with a clean record will go up...

Qualitymark

Khloe Yellow Possum wrote: »

Assuming everyone has a smartphone or tablet.

I didn't say you should have to save the boarding pass to a smartphone or tablet, I said it should be an option.

faceman

SocSocPol wrote: »

As someone who flies regularly I have yet to find Aer Lingus cheaper on any route that Ryanair flies.
Ryanair introduced cheap air travel to Ireland when Aer Lingus were screwing us royally.

I fly Dublin to Alicante upto 3 times a year and on only one occasion out of the last 2 years flying have I found Ryanair cheaper. And that was for the outbound flight only.

Zonda999

I'd love to know how many of the people who 'liked' the infamous post on Facebook have ever, or regularly fly with Ryanair. I'd say it would be very small indeed. In my opinion too, O'Leary was quite right with his response. Being quite blunt about it, its people like her that keep Ryanair's fares cheaper for the rest of us. Anyone who has flown with Ryanair in the last 3 or so years knows exactly what the score is. Ryanairs sky high penalties for not conforming to their T&C's have been well know for years too, what better motivation have you to ensure that you have everything in check?

Whats more, in this case, she already had the boarding passes printed off for the outward journey, why did she think the scenario would be any different on the return flight? How many flights do Ryanair operate every day to sun holiday destinations. Presumably most of them are only going for time frames that allow them to print outbound and return boarding passes at the same time. For people who are going for longer, as MO'L says, there are surely internet cafe's in Alicante. Even more convenient than that, I'm sure any hotel reception wouldn't mind printing off a few pages for leaving guests. This woman got exactly what she deserved IMHO..