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Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)



 
 
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  #1  
Old May 13th, 2009, 01:49 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
pig brother
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Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...ne-forget.html

Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print
tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

By Chris Johnson

Last updated at 1:41 PM on 13th May 2009

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Ryanair customers will have to pay a £10 surcharge when booking a
return flight as the budget airline moves to abolish check-in desks.

The move means passengers buying flights online will no longer benefit
from the free booking service.

From May 20 anyone booking a seat online will be required to print
their own tickets and will pay a £5 surcharge for each flight,
bringing the excess on a return flight to £10.
Ryanair

New charges: Ryanair is introducing another raft of surcharges with a
£10 fee for printing your ticket and a £40 fine if your forget to
bring it to the airport

And customers who forget to bring their ticket with them will have to
fork out for a £40 'boarding card re-issue fee' on arrival at their
designated airport.

The new fee policy, which is likely to infuriate fliers, replaces
Ryanair's previous practice of offering free online ticketing and
charging £10 for anyone who opted for face-to-face check-in.

The old policy discriminated against passport-holders from outside the
European Economic Area, who were barred until recently from checking
in via Ryanair's website.

Under the new policy, everyone will be treated the same - because now
nobody can avoid paying to check in.

The Dublin-based firm says the only exceptions will be on tickets
offered at fee-included prices of £5 or less.

Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said the airline hoped to shut down
all of its traditional check-in desks at 146 airports by October 1 -
but quicker if possible.

However, the firm will keep staffing desks to collect people's checked-
in bags - as well as potentially hefty income from passengers arriving
without their printed-out tickets.

He also said the new system will further lower the airline's costs
which will in turn allow it to drop prices for passengers by next
winter.

In-built restrictions on Ryanair's on-line ticketing system mean that
many customers will be unable to print out their tickets at the time
of booking, raising the chances for penalty charges from customers who
think they've completed the process.

Ryanair says its computer system won't allow customers booking more
than 15 days before their flight, or within four hours of one, to
check in at that time.

So people booking farther in advance - common since Ryanair's cheapest
deals often are offered months ahead and snapped up quickly - will
have to get in the habit of revisiting the website again nearer the
time of their trip.

And last-minute fliers will face an effective £40 surcharge on their
fares.

European Union litigation has forced Ryanair to change the way it
lists the costs of its tickets to include taxes and some - but not all
- fees up front.

Advertised 'free' tickets can still end up costing £20 to £80.

For example, Ryanair adds £10 or more to each round-trip ticket per
passenger if it's purchased with normal credit or debit cards, making
the charge virtually impossible to avoid.

Nonetheless, this cost is omitted from the initial price. The airline
defends this practice because it offers the option of free booking for
holders of a restrictive, ill-marketed Visa Electron card that is not
available in major countries.

Ryanair increasingly celebrates its penchant for imposing hard-to-
avoid fees.

Chief Executive Michael O'Leary in recent months has alternately
baffled, inflamed and amused press conferences with claims - now
conceded to be sharp exercises in fanning free publicity - that he
might introduce charges to use aircraft toilets and make Ryanair's
fattest passengers pay extra.

He also has floated the idea of selling branded toilet paper with his
own face on each sheet.

* The airline also announced it will no longer accept bookings for
unaccompanied passengers under the age of 16 years from today. All new
bookings will require passengers - including infants and domestic
flight passengers - to hold a valid passport or valid national
identity card.
  #2  
Old May 13th, 2009, 11:09 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
John Doe[_2_]
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Posts: 194
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

pig brother wrote:

Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print
tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)



I assume that the article's writer meant "boarding pass" instead of
"ticket" ???

This is getting funny. If Ryannair charges me $5 to print a boarding
pass, perhaps I should charge it for the ink/toner that it is costingf me ?

Or is this just a case of Ryannair wanting people to check-in at the
airport with the self-serve kiosks for free ?
  #3  
Old May 14th, 2009, 08:00 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
wildrose1723
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Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

On May 13, 7:09*pm, John Doe wrote:
pig brother wrote:
Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print
tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)


I assume that the article's writer meant "boarding pass" instead of
"ticket" ???

This is getting funny. If Ryannair charges me $5 to print a boarding
pass, perhaps I should charge it for the ink/toner that it is costingf me ?

Or is this just a case of Ryannair wanting people to check-in at the
airport with the self-serve kiosks for free ?


wow - that's a bold move for Ryanair. But at the same time should we
be surprised? They are notorious for cutting costs wherever they can -
and let's face it, that's why we get our tickets there! That 40gbp
fine is outrageous though. But again, I guess we're not paying for
customer service..... what we put up with to save a some cash huh?
  #4  
Old May 14th, 2009, 11:37 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
John Doe[_2_]
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Posts: 194
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

wildrose1723 wrote:

wow - that's a bold move for Ryanair. But at the same time should we
be surprised? They are notorious for cutting costs wherever they can


This isn't cutting costs. It is raising fares without raising fares.
Basically allows Ryannair tro advertise 1£ fares that end up to be £100
once you have left the aircraft at destination.

How long before they put a toll booth at the base of airstairs to get
passengers to pay for the cost of moving the airstairs to the aircraft ?
  #5  
Old May 17th, 2009, 04:54 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
SMS
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Posts: 899
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

John Doe wrote:
wildrose1723 wrote:

wow - that's a bold move for Ryanair. But at the same time should we
be surprised? They are notorious for cutting costs wherever they can


This isn't cutting costs. It is raising fares without raising fares.
Basically allows Ryannair tro advertise 1£ fares that end up to be £100
once you have left the aircraft at destination.

How long before they put a toll booth at the base of airstairs to get
passengers to pay for the cost of moving the airstairs to the aircraft ?


Obviously enough passengers look at the total ticket price and even with
the fees are still finding Ryanair to be a good deal. Their web site
does show all the fees and a total price in addition to the base price
that no one really pays attention to anymore on _any_ airline except
perhaps Southwest. Ryanair is still cheaper, generally by 40% or more,
than an airline like Easyjet for similar routes.

You have to look at the big picture. It's like people complaining about
the annual fee at Costco, stating confidently, 'I'm not stupid enough to
pay to shop at a store,' when in reality the annual fee is lost in the
noise when you consider how much money you save over the course of a
year, and you can often get the entire fee back, and more, with the 2%
rebate for Executive Members.

The real savings for an airline is not when half the passengers don't
need a check-in agent, because you still have so much of the fixed
overhead costs. You have to get _all_ passengers weaned off of expecting
service for things that cost the airline money.

OTOH, sometimes I wonder how well the airline itself evaluates the
payback on these fees. The last two flights I took on Continental, the
departures were delayed by about 30 minutes each time because of the
extra time it takes to load the plane when virtually every passenger has
a carry-on rollerboard suitcase. Eventually the flight attendants have
to gate-check some of the rollerboards, at no cost, because there isn't
room in the overhead bins for all those suitcases. Passengers that board
earlier in the process pay no attention to "put your smaller carry-on
under the seat in front of you," or "don't put your coat in the overhead
bin" and the bins fill up quickly, and the attitude is "hey, if you
didn't nickel and dime us we wouldn't be carrying such a ridiculous
amount of stuff onto the plane in the first place, so you deal with it."
Delaying flights has a ripple effect on the system. Eventually they
start building longer load times into the schedule, and they get less
use of the equipment, and the airport raises fees because they can
handle less airplanes.
  #6  
Old May 17th, 2009, 08:35 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
John Doe[_2_]
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Posts: 194
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

SMS wrote:

Obviously enough passengers look at the total ticket price and even with
the fees are still finding Ryanair to be a good deal.


But when you buy the ticket, can the airline really show you the total
price ? At that point in time, it doesn't know how you intend to
check-in, so it cannot charge you the appropriate fee.


The real savings for an airline is not when half the passengers don't
need a check-in agent, because you still have so much of the fixed
overhead costs. You have to get _all_ passengers weaned off of expecting
service for things that cost the airline money.


Charging £10 for web check-in isn't exactly encouragement to avoid
checking in at airport.

They could have jacked the base fee by £10, and then charged £30 for
airport check-in. (instead of charging £10 for web check-in and £40 for
airport check in).

If they really want to save costs, why not eliminate check-in
alltogether and just scan the bar codes on tickets as people board ?



OTOH, sometimes I wonder how well the airline itself evaluates the
payback on these fees. The last two flights I took on Continental, the
departures were delayed by about 30 minutes each time because of the
extra time it takes to load the plane when virtually every passenger has
a carry-on rollerboard suitcase.


Many bonehead decisions are designed to please Wall Street Casino
Analysts instead of actually being smart and generating profits.

Legacy carriers tend to have higher costs per passenger-mile, and they
can't seem to lower those to compete against the new guys on the block.
So they try to delay price increases by removing services that used to
be included in the price of the ticket (meals, luggage etc).

This has the side effect of adding value to their premium cabin products
since those still get luggage allowance, meals etc etc.

  #7  
Old May 18th, 2009, 05:20 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
John Levine
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Posts: 176
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

Obviously enough passengers look at the total ticket price and even with
the fees are still finding Ryanair to be a good deal.


But when you buy the ticket, can the airline really show you the total
price ? At that point in time, it doesn't know how you intend to
check-in, so it cannot charge you the appropriate fee.


Twelve seconds of research going through the Ryanair ticket buying
process reveals that they ask you when you buy the ticket how much
luggage you'll be checking and how you'll be checking in, and they set
the price accordingly. If you guess wrong and show up without having
checked in or with too much luggage, the price at the airport is
considerably higher.

Ryanair goes out of their way to be the most annoying airline in the
world. Even with all of the add-on fees, they're still really cheap,
e.g., a flight I'm taking from Dublin to Edinburgh next week where the
nominal price was 1 euro turned out actually to cost 25 euros by the
time I added in all the extras. But that's still an incredibly cheap
fare for that route, less than the lowest train+ferry fare for a trip
that takes all day. I wish they'd just quote the real fare and be
done with it, since I doubt anyone is still fooled by their fake
teaser prices any more.

R's,
John
  #8  
Old May 18th, 2009, 10:21 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
DevilsPGD[_2_]
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Posts: 113
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

In message SMS
was claimed to have wrote:

You have to look at the big picture. It's like people complaining about
the annual fee at Costco, stating confidently, 'I'm not stupid enough to
pay to shop at a store,' when in reality the annual fee is lost in the
noise when you consider how much money you save over the course of a
year, and you can often get the entire fee back, and more, with the 2%
rebate for Executive Members.


Please, don't try to help these people...

Costco is busy enough already, the last thing we need is people too
stupid to do basic math wandering around Costco.
  #9  
Old May 18th, 2009, 10:39 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air
SMS
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 899
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

DevilsPGD wrote:

Please, don't try to help these people...

Costco is busy enough already, the last thing we need is people too
stupid to do basic math wandering around Costco.


Did you see the movie "Idiocracy?" Costco is the only store left in 2505
and it's so big that there's a train to take you between departments.

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zNsUTWsOc"

One of my friends constantly makes snide comments about Costco, until
she needs someone to take her there to buy something like tires, a gas
grill, a TV, or other big ticket item where she just can't bear to pay
the prices at other stores.
  #10  
Old May 23rd, 2009, 12:10 AM posted to rec.travel.air
jimbob
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Posts: 41
Default Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers£10 to p

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