Ryanair To Close Check In Desks

Some day MOL will cross the line and I’m affraid it’s not too far from now …:mad:

On BBC Breakfast TV this morning, responding to criticism of the closure of check-in desks, the Irish harp-playing devil actually said that was considering charging passengers £1 to use the lavs on the aircraft!!! He siad that if they do it in public places like stations – which they do – then why not on aircraft? Anything to bring the fares down, apparently… Yeah right!

Andy

Luggage will be handled by flight attendants. It seems that Ryanair doesn´t mind considering 180 bags (usually trolleys) can´t fit into the racks. So it doesn´t matter if you rush push others aside to fight for a rack space, at the end, there´s not space enough. Flight attendants bringing luggage down, and delays.

I have just returned from Reus to Santigo this morning and the new situation is caothic. New system will only create additional problems and at the same time, big luggage can´t fit into scanner the machine. All passengers having to put it through the controls?. So, no chance of check in bottles, liquids an so on?.

No, thanks. I wil not fly them if they adopt the new system.

JOb losses?

Does anyone think that, if an airport makes less money from actually having Ryanair operate, then they may become less likely to offer Ryanair such strikingly low deals in future?

A

At the moment there is no sign towards this happening, with Airports still throwing themselves at RYR. If you look at Hahn, Fraport has recently sold its stake in the facility to a single local authority (and the other local authority partner has also sold to the same one) because the flow of passengers and their wider economic benefits are considered so great that the local authority will subsidise the Airport in the short to medium term as necessary, and this is something we are seeing at a significant number of airports around Europe. The economic value of having RYR outweighs the loss making operations of an airport. Of course this only applies to publicly owned facilities, and only where the action can be deemed as a commercial one (so as not to invoke competition rules).

I think private airports will continue to offer the deals too, not least because many of them don’t currently have any, or many servcies and so something is better than nothing, i.e. they’re employing staff anyway to sit and do nothing, so they may aswell handle an aircraft, make a small amount of money and have additional commercial revenues. I know people are very critical of the deals that Ryanair gets, but actually even if they pay £1 to an Airport operator per passenger, this could deliver £100k plus commercial incomes (maybe between £1 and £3 per pax) and contribute to an airport operating at say a £1.3m loss rather than a £1.5m loss, and by being a good airport, over time this can start to creep up. Remember that many of these airports already ahve the fire cover etc in place because they often handle a single daily servcie from their national airline or something equally ridiculous.

The secret is to be an efficient airport and to maximise other revenues. We have just completed some work for a Ryanair airport to help give them guidance on how to move forward towards making money whilst serving the Airline, and it is possible.

Many of the Airports served by RYR will not gain services from any other airline, being realistic. Therefore their only hope of delivering passengers is to do deals on the landing charges, or else face not moving forward.

These are DIFFICULT commercial decisions.

JOb losses?

Well, closing checkin desks saves the airline money in three main ways:

For the sake of this argument, I think it reasonable to assume Ryanair is interested in all three either directly or as a reductions in the amount they have to pay to a handling agent. Thus I think that job losses are ultimately inevitable if this goes ahead.

One other interesting fact to consider… Airports actually make the facilities available to handling agents like Serviceair, who pay for them. The handling agents then charge their airline customers in turn. Most airports take a share in revenues made by their tenants – including handling agents. Thus, if a handling agent makes less money (because it is doing less handling, a la Ryanair in the future), then the airport’s revenue share take declines. This means that Ryanair’s actions will not only reduce the activities (and staff levels) of their handling agents, but will reduce the amount of money the airport actually ultimately makes from Ryanair. Does anyone think that, if an airport makes less money from actually having Ryanair operate, then they may become less likely to offer Ryanair such strikingly low deals in future?

A

Perhaps, but similarly, if I were Michael O’Leary, I’d look at it differently again. As mentioned by Skymonster, the airline has reported losses, so why the need for a service used by such a small proportion of customers?

Also, has there actually been any mention of job losses? I think we might be jumping the gun a little here.

As you probably saw previously I did thank skymonster for his info and didnt disagree with it.

I dont think we are jumping ahead with the mention of job losses. Where will check-in staff go if you’re going to shut the check-in desks? Its supposed to be a cost cutting measure so the employees will probably go. Mind you, new systems normally have a few teething problems, which could be quite costly, so they’ll definitely need a contingency plan.

Jobs are pretty important but we’re all replacing ourselves with computers.. 😀

the airline has reported losses, so why the need for a service used by such a small proportion of customers?

Like you and I agreed in a previous post, every penny counts.. 😉

Perhaps, but similarly, if I were Michael O’Leary, I’d look at it differently again. As mentioned by Skymonster, the airline has reported losses, so why the need for a service used by such a small proportion of customers?

Also, has there actually been any mention of job losses? I think we might be jumping the gun a little here.

It has always been the strategy to reduce the number of check-in desks/staff, I’m not even sure whether the current climate has actually brought this forward or whether it just happens to be coincidence that the number of people using check-in has hit the point at which RYR were wanting start this process. There has also been an issue of infrastructure involved because not all airports are ready for printed boarding cards yet, so I guess those airports are going to have to speed things now.

I think if you happened to be one of the check-in desk personnel you may well look at it slightly differently.

Perhaps, but similarly, if I were Michael O’Leary, I’d look at it differently again. As mentioned by Skymonster, the airline has reported losses, so why the need for a service used by such a small proportion of customers?

Also, has there actually been any mention of job losses? I think we might be jumping the gun a little here.

Very good post above, Andy.

I just hope for everyone’s sake that the reliability & availability of their website improves. Ever since they changed the booking system last year, on quite a few occasions I have tried to access their site and found it’s been down. Seems very poor for such a major web-based company to have a faulty website.

Regarding the actual closing of the desks, I can’t really see any reason why they wouldn’t. Ryanair definately need to save as much money as possible in the struggling market and all these new planes arriving, for example, will not help.

Thanks for the info skymonster. I guess MOL was wrong when he thought Ryanair was going to have an easy ride out of it. I remember when he did an interview saying Ryanair would be fine and that other big airlines would go bust. Atleast he has to suffer too, its just a shame that the only real people to suffer is his employees and the Ryanair passengers.

Think about the bigger picture. Ryanair isnt a struggling airline.

But they’re moving that way… They posted a significant loss for the last quarter, and whilst the Irish harp-playing devil can blow sunshine up people’s a**es about how things will improve, less and less people are believing him.

He has no choice but to continue to try to cut costs. The economy and the pound-euro exchange rate are having a huge impact on travel (mitigated to come extent by inward travel to the UK on the back of the favourable aspects of the exchange rate), but moving capacity to new routes that are less averse to exchange rate fluctuations is costly. Ryanair also has a huge aircraft delivery program that they can’t get out of – cheap acquisition locked Ryanair into deliveries whilst other carriers paying higher prices have more room to defer new aircraft, and the depression in the industry means that they can’t get rid of older aircraft as easily as they thought they could. Ryanair thus has a capacity problem based on further aircraft deliveries and declining demand, and can only try to further reduce its costs in order to maintain profitability (or stem losses). The problem comes when cost reductions bring about further declines in customer service standards – when that happens such policies can become a spiraling self-serving decent. Its coming to Ryanair – not total closure, but they need a very rapid upturn in the economy to maintain their position in the market, let alone grow further.

Andy

Largely irrelevent to me as I refuse to fly with Ryanair EVER, but I increasingly dispair of Ryanair and where it is attempting to take the industry. Online checkin – sure, for the most part excellent idea, and I do it regularly with the Star Alliance airlines I use, AS LONG AS I have access to the internet. Not always possible of course… And whilst it might be easy leaving home or on a one-day there-and-back, not always so easy if you’re staying somewhere a couple of days or more.

In reality, all they are doing is tranferring costs from themselves to their customers – OK sometimes I have internet access (maybe in a hotel – I usually have a laptop) but often have to pay for it, and even if I have internet access I don’t always have a printer to print the boarding card. Compulsion means having to find internet access whilst you’re away and having to take the time to do so, and quite probably having to pay for it, and maybe having to pay the costs of getting to somewhere with internet access.

So, another erosion of service levels and increase in inconvenience for [at least some, probably many] passengers. And you can bet it isn’t going to bring their fares down – its going to allow them to attempt to increase their profits. Sooner of later the Irish harp-playing devil in Dublin is going to come a cropper – the day can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned and the good news is that this may in a small way hasten it. I feel for the people who will lose their jobs over this initiative, and I feel for the people who will lose their jobs when the Ryanair model really starts to break down sometime in the future… But if you dance with the devil…

Andy

The job losses are the most important issue for who? Certainly not Ryanair. Like you, me and the rest of the nation, they too have to watch their pennies during these tough times. If so few passengers are checking in at the airport, it makes sense to put a stop to the service.

I’d say that the most important issue for job losses is for the people losing them? Lets face it, the way things are at the moment more people are losing jobs than being employed. Also, do you think that if Ryanair didn’t implement this new system they would go bust? I doubt it. Other airlines have kept their check-in staff. Quite possible that they reduced the amount they had but they didnt get rid of the lot and replace them with a computer.

Think about the bigger picture. Ryanair isnt a struggling airline. They’ve taken delivery of new aircraft recently. Gordon Brown persistently tells the British public to spend to keep the economy going but like you say everyone is watching their pennies during these hard times because many are losing their jobs, however, there are airlines in much much worse condition than Ryanair and they’re not laying people off and replacing them with a computer system. I think if you happened to be one of the check-in desk personnel you may well look at it slightly differently.

Then surely they won’t be flying Ryanair, because they wouldn’t have purchased their ticket in the first place?

The next line of my posts says “I mean I can buy my granny a ticket and send her the confirmation by post, but when we start mailing boarding cards doesn’t it start to get a bit iffy?”

I worked for a summer with elderly passengers at Stansted and my university dissertation investigated the ways in which airlines sell tickets over the internet. A significant proportions of the older passengers I spoke to had not purchased their own ticket and someone else had purchased it for them.

I really don’t see how this can work!

What about people who don’t have internet access? Doesn’t this rather alienate a fairly huge swaithe of the population?

Then surely they won’t be flying Ryanair, because they wouldn’t have purchased their ticket in the first place?

How do you do when you travel for one week or more.
It’s easy to check-in and print from home, but when you are away, it’s too early to print the return boarding pass and you have no way to do it from your remote location if there is no internet cafe around…

That’s stupid.

I think that the job losses are the most important point here. We’re in a recession and the job losses couldnt come at a worse time really.

The job losses are the most important issue for who? Certainly not Ryanair. Like you, me and the rest of the nation, they too have to watch their pennies during these tough times. If so few passengers are checking in at the airport, it makes sense to put a stop to the service.

I think that the job losses are the most important point here. We’re in a recession and the job losses couldnt come at a worse time really.

I really don’t see how this can work!

What about people who don’t have internet access? Doesn’t this rather alienate a fairly huge swaithe of the population? I mean I can buy my granny a ticket and send her the confirmation by post, but when we start mailing boarding cards doesn’t it start to get a bit iffy?

I know that in the states the check-youself-in-machines at the airport are quite popular… wouldn’t that be a better happy medium?

Thats going to be interesting!

I wonder if this could lead to Job loss’s within the handling agents that Handle FR?

The number of baggage handlers per aircraft has already been reduced, and the aim to cut out more checked bags will have the same effect, so the answer is yes. But then that is a way of reducing costs still further. Not good news for baggage handlers in the medium term though.

Don’t you still need somewhere to drop your hold baggage (if applicable)?

You can currently check-in with many airliens and drop your bag off, so that is not a problem really.