More cheap rhetoric from Scumbag O’Riley. His airline just keeps getting more irrelevant. My suggestion is every Ryanair passenger pays £1 extra to make MOL go away.

Andy

The words that I hear over and over again, from hoteliers, tourism bodies and other organisations when discussing air service need is “they decide on a destination based on where they can go for the lowest fare, and then book everything after that”. So the scenario of applying €10 to every fare means that Dublin may be €10.01 rather than €0.01 to go elsewhere (admittedly the 1p fare is not around at the moment, £1 is generally the lowest including all taxes/charges) and so they will choose to go elsewhere, and therefore demand drops for the Dublin services, which affects load factor, which is the important element of the business models of these airlines.

The point is, it’s not that people stop flying because of €10, it’s the fact that they choose to fly to other destinations and demand drops for the higher charged service. So back to the €5 check-in, that becomes a constant applied to all fares, but the passenger choosing a weekend break would still need to pay €10 more to go to Dublin than say, Riga.

Yes, but again you miss my point. I am not particularly disputing that additional charges applied at only one point on a network will inhibit traffic to and from that point in comparison to other points on the network. And yes, I accept that in an ideal world the cheaper the fare the more it encourages travel. If he wants to throw all of his toys out of Dublin’s pram because of the taxes, that’s just fine by me – demand ebbs and flows for all sorts of reasons, and moving capacity in response is simply good business practice.

But as I said, that isn’t the point at all. My issue is that the imposition of a tax (in this case at Dublin) causes cries of derision from O’Riley, whilst his own imposition of a checkin tax (across his entire network) is fine. Yes, maybe if the cheapest fares are going EUR10.02 rather than EUR0.02 round trip most people will still travel, but the bottom line from Ryanair is always that as far as he’s concerned HIS additional fees and charges are OK whilst everyone else’s aren’t. It is the duality of the standards that is the real issue here. As an aside, just consider the fact that he’s just applied a pay freeze on his pilots – again at right the same time as he’s hiking ancilliary charges for his passengers.

Anyhows, seeing as I never have and never will fly with Ryanair, it is largely irrelevent to me. Unforatunately, almost everything he says – be it pro- his own airline or anti- everyone else he has to deal with at some time or another – is just designed to sucker the stupid… Sad fact is that there are an aweful lot of those around these days.

Andy
(off to LA now in paid C-class – checkin, bags, gin and tonics, meals, all included!)

I appreciate your career was affected by this airline, and I am sorry for that, but sometimes Andy I do wonder whether you can’t see the logic because of your anger?

I’m afraid you have me totally wrong there RDC… I did work in the airline industry at one time, but moved to a much more lucrative consultancy role but still engaged with the aviation industry when Ryanair was still flying BAC 1-11s between Dublin and Luton (and doing it badly, I might add). So I’ve been out of it for well over 10 years now, and Ryanair had nothing to do with my changing my line of business.

The only impact Ryanair and the likes have had on my career (not withstanding the fact that we’ve some good done business with some of the low-costs) is that I now have to drive to Birmingham to fly with a “real” airline like Lufthansa, KLM ior Air France, as British Midland / bmi nolonger provides network services from my local airport at EMA.

But lets be clear about this… It is really only Ryanair I dislike. I have flown bmibaby from EMA on a few occasions (where needs must), I’ve used easyJet several times, and indeed I have flown Southwest quite a few times. It would be fair to say I regard Southwest as the [VERY] acceptable face of the low-cost sector – no baggage charges, no check-in charges, they will do connections (baggage and ticketing), soda and peanuts provided on board without charge, etc… If only Ryanair had really modelled itself on Southwest, O’Riley would have had plenty of mine and my employers money over the years. The problem is the deception – the “always the lowest fare” mantra (provenly untrue at times), the “we never apply fuel surcharges” deception (no, they just put the base fare or the ancilliary fees up instead), the applying unjustified charges (credit card fees way in excess of what the airline incurs), the outright two-facedness (an Irish tax of EUR10 puts passengers off but a Ryanair checkin charge of EUR5 each way does not), the fact that they do everything they can to avoid complying with EU law (compensation for delays/cancellations, etc)… There’s plenty more stuff. Sure, plenty of the other low-costs do some of these things – but its only Ryanair that does them all. As an airline, they have single-handedly dragged the industry down with them.

On the other hand, if you like to pay £150 for your return with BA and have the free bag and free cup of tea then you can, but if you prefer to pay £150 with BA but then only take hand baggage anyway then you start paying for things you’re not using…and even worse…subsidising those who do want to check-in a bag because the cost is split across all passengers!

Always did prefer this approach, always will… That’s why I fly “real” airlines both on business AND when almost always I’m paying myself – I will accept that on a few occasions there is no choice and flying a low-cost is a necessary evil, or the only logical choice due not to cost but to convenience.

I’m not having a go, you know I think your input is great to many topics, but I do sometimes feel you go MOL/RYR bashing because of a grudge (and you’re entitled to that) rather than through sensible analysis.

Nope, no grudge… See above. I do, however, hate what O’Riley has done to the industry, and the affect its had on the poor sods who work in it now. As I said, there is an acceptable face to low-cost airlines, but its Southwest and not Ryanair.

In the case of the €10 then yes, it will make a difference because it will effect those who buy the cheapest seats and put bums on seats. The €5 for check-in is RYR’s problem, i.e. they cannot keep costs low enough for all travellers and so will price some out of the market, but in the case of the Tourist Tax, the airline is loosing passengers at the lower end of it’s market because if you only pay €1 for a flight because it’s cheap then you may think twice before paying €11, accepting that all other elements remain static (taxes and discretionary costs).

Now see you were doing quite well until that. There simply is no logic or defence for arguing that a EUR10 increase in the cost of travel is unacceptable if its applied by the government, but it is acceptable if its applied by the airline. That’s the issue. Having to pay EUR10 extra either drives business away or it doesn’t irrespective of who the EUR10 goes to. But of course Scumbag O’Riley wants the proletariat to believe that the government is evil and he’s a saint. And many of them are stupid enough to believe it (not suggesting you are stupid, by the way). I’ll give him his dues – and I said this previously – he is clever, very clever. Cleverer in fact than many of his customers, which is the one and only reason why his business as successful as it is.

Andy

I never said the prospects were good for selling, I just said the price was good for this aircraft.

I wasn’t particularly commenting on your comment – I was merely reflecting on the fact that ANZ will be quite challenged finding a buyer at any sensible price in the near term. SAA were “lucky” shifting some of their 744s fairly recently to Transaero – I don’t see the prospects for pax 744s being very good now, unless they get lucky with an airline like thatlooking to pick up one or two used examples for, what you say, is quite a cheap rate.

A

Actually, the prospects of selling it aren’t good… There are a number of 747-400s already sitting in storage, and there’s pretty much no airline looking for passenger 747-400s right now. There are also some 747-400Fs sitting in storage and slots for pax-to-freighter job are booked up for quite some time into the future, so a conversion is unlikely in the near term. In today’s business climate, I suspect the realistic options are to park it or part it out.

Andy

The argument is largely irrelevent – if for no other reason than Bmused55 typically takes the view that only Boeing are capable of building anything revolutionary! :diablo:

Personal views aside, the revolutionary aspect is indeed irrelevent. The A320 is a part of European airliner manufacturing history (a milestone in fact, if for no other reason that the quantities it has been and will be manufactured in) and sooner or later should find a place in preservation on that basis alone – if one can find a reason to preserve a Mercure (a design of which only 10 saw service) then there’s plenty of grounds to preserve an A320. And of course if one is going to be preserved, it should really be a very early one, ideally the number one prototype – the opportunity that was lost with the #1 A300 should not be missed with the A320.

I don’t “do” facebook, but for the reasons expressed above I think that the idea of making sure a very early A320 is preserved is a good one.

Andy

How very appropriate… One I might read, I think!