Originally posted by Interflug62M
People, if like me you’ve no time for Ryanair then the best way to show them that is just don’t fly with ’em. I never have and never will. Their “business model”, founded on a house of cards, relies on a constantly high load factor. Take it away from them! There is always another way to get there. Sooner or later all air travellers will have to resume paying a realistic, not excessive, rate to fly and that WILL come. Ryanair splitting hairs over wether or not it should do its duty by less abled passengers in order to maintain its artificially low cost mantle, quite honestly stinks!

Support your full service carriers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reason Ryanair are so busy? They are affordable to most. They hide nothing in their terms and conditions, so people should be aware of what is and what is not included. Do you really believe that IF Ryanair and the likes disappear, that all the passengers will be flocking to the higher cost airlines? Not bloody likely! And, if BA, for example, put their fares up after Ryanair and co are not around, people would not simply accept that and pay ridiculously fares again and I would expect a huge revolt.

The travelling public are not silly – if it could be done when Ryanair were around, it could be done when Ryanair are not around – but I sincerely doubt any of this will happen on the scale that you so matter-of-factly predict.

You ask the majority of Ryanair’s customers why they are flying with Ryanair and they will tell you it is because they can afford to. Money will always, always be the deciding factor in the vast majority of cases among air travellers – myself included! (and I work for a full service airline!):)

Kev

Please believe me when I say that I’m not discriminative again anyone with any disability. I agree with the argument that it is not Mr. Ross’ fault that he is disabled but I disagree that it is Ryanair’s responsibilty to have to pay the airport’s charges levied for wheelchair users. I think the airport should be in trouble for this – not the airline.

I also think it is irrelevant if Ryanair make small or huge profits. Does this mean that Mr. Ross would have not actioned the court case if Ryanair made a loss? No, I think that is missing the point by miles.

As far as Ryanair charging £0.50 per passenger per sector as a wheelchair levy – it is all about them making their point that they don’t see why they should have to pay an airport’s cost to wheelchair passengers and are now passing it on to every STN and LGW passenger just like other airlines (albeit at a much inflated price) – but unless they do this, their point would not be noticed. I still agree with Ryanair that they should not be responsible for this, neither should the passenger BUT Stansted Airport definately should be. If I was Ryanair, a business, I would be fed up if I was paying for another business’ service to be provided to a third party.

All critics, have a read. Extracted from Ryanair’s website:

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fare airline today (30th Jan 04) instructed its lawyers to proceed immediately to lodge an appeal to the Court of Appeal, of what it considers to be the defective judgement handed down in the Central London County Court in a case taken by Mr Robert Ross. In this case, Mr Ross, who was not travelling in a wheelchair, and who was enjoying a £10 fare from London to the South of France, and whom the Judge accepted “would not fly to Perpignan four times a year if the Ryanair air fares were not so cheap” still expects Ryanair to pay £18 (£36 return) – or almost twice his air fare – for wheelchair assistance to a passenger who is not in a wheelchair – to get through the British Airports Authority’s complicated terminal building at Stansted Airport.

In this case it is the BAA Stansted (who refuse to provide free of charge assistance to disabled people through their terminal building) that is out of step, not Ryanair. Ryanair operates to 86 airports all over Europe, and at over 80 of these airports the airport operator provides the disabled assistance through its terminal buildings on a free of charge basis. Why doesn’t Stansted or the BAA?

This County Court decision is also out of step with the current draft disability paper being prepared by the European Union. This paper states “There is a strong case for making the Airport manager responsible for organising and financing the assistance that people with reduced mobility need to use air transport”. Ryanair fully supports and endorses this view.

Commenting on this defective judgement today, a spokesman for Ryanair said

“We wish to reiterate that Ryanair has never charged any wheelchair passenger for assistance at any airport including Stansted. In the case of wheelchair passengers Ryanair absorbs the cost of this assistance at Stansted and the tiny minority of other airports around Europe where this service is not provided free of charge by the Airport Operator”.

“Mr Ross was not travelling in a wheelchair in this case, and was therefore directed to the third party service provider in Stansted, because the BAA Stansted do not provide this service free of charge – unlike the 80 other airports that Ryanair use in Europe.

“We believe this decision of the County Court is defective. It should clearly be the responsibility of the very profitable airport terminal operators to provide disabled passenger assistance through their buildings on a free of cost basis. These costs should not be imposed on the airlines, particularly when – as in the case of Mr Ross and Ryanair – the fare paid by Mr Ross to fly to the South of France was just half the cost of providing wheelchair assistance to get him through the terminal building in Stansted.

“We have instructed our lawyers to immediately appeal this decision, and we believe the Court of Appeal will find in favour of current EU thinking which is that these costs should be the responsibility of the airport terminal owner and operator. In the meantime, Ryanair regrettably will be levying a charge of £0.50 on every passenger carried in order to meet the cost of wheelchair assistance at Stansted, Gatwick, Dublin and Shannon airports, which are the only airports out of the 86 European airports Ryanair operates to who do not provide this mobility assistance through the airport terminal on a free of charge basis. Ryanair regrets this small levy but this defective County Court decision leaves us with no alternative. This levy will be withdrawn if and when this appeal is successful, which will we expect result in BAA Stansted being obliged to provide this assistance at Stansted on a free of charge basis to the disabled in line with current policy at the overwhelming majority of European airports.”

Attached is an extract from the current EU discussion document on disabled assistance at airports which recommends that airport operators/owners should be responsible for providing free of charge assistance to the disabled.

EXTRACT FROM THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION TRANSPORT DIRECTORATE STAFF WORKING PAPER

RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH REDUCED MOBILITY WHEN
TRAVELLING BY AIR

17. The managing body of an airport has wide responsibilities throughout the airport and so looks be well placed to provide a comprehensive and seamless service. Moreover, it would be unreasonable to expect one airline to provide assistance throughout an airport, for its own passengers and for those transferred between carriers, in the terminals that it uses and in others. There is a strong case for making the airport manager responsible for organising and financing the assistance that people with reduced mobility need to use air transport. (It could supply the assistance itself or place contracts with suppliers.)

38. The solution suggested would avoid these problems as the charge levied on each airline would be proportional to the total quantity of passengers that it embarked and disembarked at an airport. In this way, it would be independent of the number of passengers with reduced mobility carried, so that the airline would little economic incentive to reduce their numbers. Such a scheme would not impose additional costs on the sector, except for that of extended assistance when required, but would change the way assistance at airports was
organised and financed: certain responsibilities would be transferred from air carriers to themanaging bodies of airports. However, the latter would not bear the cost themselves but rather charge it to the airlines using their airports. Airlines would pass the charge on to their passengers as a whole, so that it would be shared among a large number of citizens. And a person with reduced mobility would not be seen as an extra cost but welcomed as a passenger, at all stages from booking a ticket to arrival at destination.

Source: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/transport/air/rights/index_en.

Attached is a list of 80 European airports where the terminal owner/operator provides disabled assistance free of charge.

Airports provide free assistance to passengers requesting wheelchair services

AUSTRIA
Graz/ Klagengurt/ Linz/ Salzburg

BELIGUM
Charleroi

DENMARK
Aarhus/ Esbjerg

FINLAND
Tampere

FRANCE
Beauvais/ Bergerac/Biarritz/ Brest/ Carcassonne/ Dinard/ La Rochelle/ Limoges/ Montpellier/ Nimes/ Pau/ Perpignan/ Poitiers/ Rodez/ St. Etienne/ Tours

GERMANY
Altenburg/ Baden-Baden/ Berlin/ Erfurt/ Freidrichshafen/ Hahn/ Lubeck/ Niederrhine

HOLLAND
Eindhoven/ Groningen

IRELAND
Cork/ Kerry/ Knock

ITALY
Algehero/ Anconca/ Bari/ Bergamo/ Brescia/ Ciampino/ Forli/ Genoa/ Palermo/ Pescara/ Pisa/ Treviso/ Trieste/ Turin

NORWAY
Haugesund/ Torp

PORTUGAL
Faro

SPAIN
Girona/ Jerez/ Murcia/ Reus/ Valladolid

SWEDEN
Gothenburg/ Malmo/ Skvasta/ Vasteras

UK
Blackpool/ Bournemouth/ Bristol/ Cardiff/ City of Derry/ LeedsBradford/ Liverpool/ Luton/ Newcastle/ Prestwick

Ryanair did not put us up in a hotel, no. But you and I and everyone else here knows that already. Thems the Ryanair rules. If you book with Ryanair online, you tick the box to say you have read the terms and conditions and if you don’t – well, that’s your own fault! I’ve flown with Ryanair on about 20 return flights in the last year and this is the first time I have had a flight cancelled on me. In fact in 10 years of travelling frequently, I have never had a flight cancelled on me before now. Considering the average cost of a return flight with Ryanair (at least as far as I am concerned) is about £25 inc. taxes etc, I’d prefer to fly Ryanair and pay the small fare and put up with the occasional hotel bill on top as and when necessary rather than pay at least double that with another airline on every trip. In the end the family room at the hotel at Gerona Airport cost us €97.00 between four of us – that’s about £17 each! I’m not complaining at all. At the airport when the flight was cancelled, I never saw or heard one single waved fist, stamped foot or raised voice. It was all dealt with very professionally by Ryanair and their customers on this flight appreciated that weather just cannot be avoided. Everyone was rebooked on the next possible flight or given a refund, as promised on the website.

It seems to me that most people are so quick to criticise Ryanair but in many cases these people are the same ones who are online looking at their website finding the fares that they cannot say no to. 🙂

Hi Mongu

What the Nominal Accounting boys do with the revenue after they get my journals, I would have to say I do not know the technicalities involved there in depth enough to give you a too detailed discription. Sorry! I supervise one of 7 sections in our Accounts Dept, so my knowledge is limited to my job together with a bit of common sense and initiative.

I hear what you say about bookings taken in one period for travel in another though, and we put all future flights’ revenue into a forward sales suspense account. After the flying month is completed a whole range of reports etc are used to determine the facts of what we have actually earned from the flights. Whether you can answer the question yourself from this, or not, I do not know.

As an aside and not as an argument, the credit cards funds are usually in the bank account within 3 days of the booking being made. Also, in our airline, all sectors are sold individually and not as return fares. A return fare is just made up of two one-ways. So whether or not you could recognise revenue from a booking after just the first sector, I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Hope this helps. I wouldn’t like to be our auditors!

STUPID COW!

Mongu

With the exception of group bookings, low cost, ticketless airlines typically charge the credit card for the booking before the booking is confirmed nowadays. Traditional airlines will collect the payment upon issuing the ticket. The (sale) revenue is recognised once the booking is confirmed, as you’d probably expect.

However, airlines are obviously interested in how much money a flight has actually earned once it has flown, so the earned/flown revenue is recognised after the flight is closed. There may well be a change inthe numbers due to changed dates, death, refund of flexible tickets etc etc.

With the low cost airlines, who don’t offer any refunds, I’d imagine the three things (booked seat/payment/earned revenue) could more or less be recognised at the same time as nothing will (or nothing should) change (perhaps except death?). It varies from airline to airline, but I expect most airlines look at all the figures from bookings made to earned revenue at the different stages.

At the end of the day – we all want to see the money in the bank. Not something all airlines have the luxury of being able to see unfortunately!

LBARULES

What I did forget to mention, is that January and February are traditionally the worst months for passenger loads for airlines. I don’t think you will be seeing Ryanair do this (very often) in the more popular travel months. The flight I was on yesterday to Lübeck, despite selling seats for £0.50 inc tax was almost empty – probably only 30-40 passengers on the B738. With 189 seats less 36 seats blocked off equals 153 seats for sale – a 26% load factor! I’m not surprised they are selling seats on more flight on more days of the week at this time of year.