Ryanair is blaming the UK government after nearly 200 people were stranded in Portugal overnight. Does the airline have a point about the government’s red tape, or is Ryanair simply scapegoating for its (sometimes questionable) business practices?
Continue reading: Ryanair Furious After UK Blocks Rescue Flight Over Technicality
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The flag of convenience carriers (RyanAir is a pioneer) love to exploit various different regulatory regimes when it suits them ... but then complain when their tax/wage/labor/contract avoidance schemes bite back at them, as it appears in this case.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Should have taken these costs/risks into account in the business model, especially as the world fragments, rather than assume the authorities will just roll over and give whatever exemptions to policy are expedient.
If this were an isolated incident, it would be common sense to allow an exception. But it seems this is a pattern, and the UK CAA is absolutely right to put its foot down.
From the CAA background information on Ryanair ;
Ryanair UK’s current schedule requires 18 aircraft. It has made the business decision to register 15 aircraft in the UK, leaving them at higher risk of disruption in the event that issues that might ground an aircraft.
Yes. There is some back story to this, Ryanair had been operating and planning to operate again this summer various "RK" routes on Ryanair DAC aircraft under exemptions. The CAA finally put a stop to it so Ryanair was forced to cancel various flights to Morocco etc. I imagine if this truly was an exceptional rare scenario then the CAA would approve it.
Ryanair could have (and often does) recrewed with a Ryanair DAC crew but likely none on standby at that time of night at a small base
That despicable Irishman is as bent as a nine-bob note. If one takes note of what many say about a certain U.S. politician, they will make excellent bedfellows.
Are you talking about O'Leary? Who is not mentioned once in the piece. Or Wilson? It's hard to know who your ire and casual cultural stereotyping is aimed at.
I'm really confused by a lot of the comments here. They seem to be chastising Ryanair when all they are doing is operating around the mess that is Brexit.
Ryanair has always been very anti-Brexit from day one. So all of a sudden commentators here are now pro-Brexit? Just because it inconveniences Ryanair? That's just pathetic.
The main thrust of Ryanair's argument in this case is that the decision to not grant an exemption was made arbitrarily, rather than within the framework that is outlined by the CAA.
There are plenty of businesses, including Ryanair, that exploit various regulatory regimes. But they all do so within the framework of laws, regulations and processes that are applied in a non-arbitrary way.
Knowing the individual personalities involved on both sides of this dispute, it was no surprise that this confrontation eventually happened and it is just surprising that it took so long!
Same uniforms, same livery - but what has been mentioned here is it is likely that Ryanair DAC has significantly lower labour costs and overall costs. Ultimately the UK does not want an European registered airline operating service to an non European country and is of the view, like that of many countries that UK passengers should be flown to Morocco either via a Moroccan registered or UK reg. airline. Similar to how the US wouldn't allow a Canadian airline to ordinarily fly point to point US passengers to Mexico direct. Don't understand Ryanair's point about a similar diversion the same day from UK-> Italy, as a European based carrier would be fine.
The real villain here was brexit, an ill-advised and destructive process that turns out to have been juiced by foreign adversaries. I don't like Ryanair, but at least they apparently campaigned visibly against that enormous mistake.
As for this case, poor people stranded (and worse for me would be "I'm in Faro but wasn't planning to stay... dangit"). Next time, just tie up the disruptive person and turn them over to UK police?
Exactly correct - the CAA is changing the rules as they go along. Nonsense like this is what deters investment. If regulating bodies are seen to operate capriciously (or in this case, perhaps even conductively), it erodes business confidence.
But what about the customer base? I've not been impressed by the intelligence of the folks that flies the UK equivalent of Spirit. Seems like a FAFO situation for a lot of sunburnt Brits who likely voted for Brexit. I'm sure a lot of other Europeans would agree.
The other side of the coin is that all of the other prior decisions to grant exemptions were made arbitrarily and that Ryanair knew this and exploited the arbitrariness of these waivers as it suited them, and is now pushing back against the application of the rule as written.
Incidentally, you seem to advocate for regulators to have no wiggle room to apply common sense to situations that are unforseen ("arbitrariness") and our completely rigid. That would be a scary one to live in.
Nothing in modern democracy is juiced by outside actors. If you are too myopic, under-informed or distracted to make an informed decision for you and your fellow citizens, that is on you.
We live at the apex of learning potential. If people act against that, it's for other purposes and for other reasons. I'd start with disinvestment in rational education—not solely a US problem.
Good for Ryanair to go after disruptive customers in the courts. Those who cannot pay can declare bankruptcy and have their credit record (and future employment potential etc. etc.) trashed.
Actions should always have consequences. This person ruined 200 plus people's vacation, cost them a day's worth of wages, etc etc etc. and for them not have to pay for this would be a travesty. And yes, it sends a clear warning message to would need disruptors.
The real villain here was the moronic, drunken, misbehaving chav who probably should have been denied boarding in the first place.
The legal fees alone will sink them. Forget public defenders - they're for criminal matters, and won't involve themselves in civil suits.
I believe that the LLC passenger type in Europe is different compared to the US. In Europe, the network legacy carriers only really fly to destinations from their hubs. The low cost carriers are really the only ones that offer nonstop flights in many markets. That offers a huge convenience, because why not fly for 1.5 hours on a Ryanair plane vs spending 6 hours with transit flying a network carrier. Additionally, the network carriers often charge a lot more than LLCs in most markets (in my experience). That combined with my previous point makes it hard to make a case to not fly an LLC, especially if the flight is so short.
In the US, Spirit doesn't really fly any routes that it has to itself. It mostly flies in markets served nonstop by legacy carriers (or Southwest), with the proposition of a cheaper fare with nothing included. That's why most of their customer base is a certain type of consumer. The same isn't really true for Ryanair or Easyjet
This is Ryanair at fault from the beginning! They should have a cleared and cleaned procedure to deal with intoxicated passenger and if they do, the gate agents should deny boarding this intoxicated passenger. So neither they don't have the procedure in place or the gate agents failed this task - not complying with the company's policy! This is their first defense in The Swiss Cheese Model but they failed!
“The real villain”, omarsidd, is well known by thinking people, it has nothing to do with your remoaners remorse about the democratic will of the British electorate. “The real victim” is democracy and those affected by the cowboy managerial style of the mad Irishman who heads Ryanair.
Folks, the facts are that Ryanair is a cattle class airline, run by a most abominable Irishman, for the good and benefit of Ryanair.
Ryanair cares nothing for the passengers, staff or any aviation regulators.
Passengers get what they deserve when they book a Ryanair flight …. pay peanuts expect to be taken for a monkey by Ryanair.
Should they do breath tests at boarding or what do you suggest? Most drunk people don't show any symptoms before boarding (and most won't during the flight either). Half of that plane was probably "intoxicated" given the route.
Have you boarded a Ryanair flight (to or from the UK before)? While I can’t extrapolate based on a few flights, all my experiences (except the 6 person post covid flight) have been horrible, up to the highlight of a 6am flight 50% filled with (very clearly) drunk soccer supporters that flew straight from a night out and behaved horrible… Obviously extremely drunk before take off. Still can’t believe that flight didn’t get diverted. Let’s be honest, it’s all about selling even more on the flights for them…
I sometimes consume enough myself on flights (quietly), so I’m definitely not in the camp “alcohol should be banned”!
After that flight I swore never to set foot on one of their planes again…
And yes, of course the occasional drunk person can always make it past the GA.
LCCs aren't much/any cheaper during higher demand dates such as those around bank holidays. easyJet in particular can have some fares that comfortably exceed BA's, and flying Ryanair or Jet2 with luggage often works out more expensive than Lufthansa business class (which, for all its onboard faults, does grant airport priority and lounge access benefits). Direct flights are important to many people, the problem is that a lot of the routes only operate 2-3 times a week so the benefit of time savings is often evaporated through the need to follow a rigid schedule dictated by the airline, and that's why I never fly them.
What does one's credit record have to do with their employment potential? Unless we're talking a finance director, chartered auditor or something of the sort, that sort of sensitive personal data won't be available to potential employers and/or anyone else other than financial services providers.
@AwroB13a , I don't necessarily disagree with the thrust of that argument, but I also don't think it's sensible to stereotype Ryanair passenger demographics as being particularly impoverished, ill-behaved etc. A 75 year old who doesn't speak a bunch of foreign languages will want to fly with them direct when visiting her grandchildren, and so will the London banker who's got a holiday home in rural France, hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest BA destination.
Comment away, but lose the casual bigotry. You've been flagged once already today. The nationality of whomever runs Ryanair is irrelevant, but you've made a point of calling this out in negative terms twice today.
Ironically the EU does exactly the same in reverse in aviation and many other industries, so this is not unique to the UK government.
1. I'm not surprised at all as that is the worst airline in the world.
2. Ryan air cannot complain. Operating a plane by another airline has some procedure that they did not follow.
3. "Stranded passengers" sounds very bad but it's BS. It's not like they're going to die or stay in the cold overnight. It only means Ryan air has to pay for accomodation, an alternate flight, and compensation for long delay. But Ryan air, being the worst airline in the world, doesn't really want that. They prefer to take the government to court to have an excuse no to pay went passengers take them to court.
It's about time people stop flying with this company. I did
This should be the topic of anything. There airline industry is very regulated for good reasons and Ryanair didn't follow procedure so was denied request. I was against Brexit but this has absolutely nothing to do with it. You cannot go against regulation in flight or there are accidents.
I completely justify the regulator. Ryanair was trying to cut a corner to save a pound over passengers safety so f*** them
Welcome to Brexit, Sir, I'm sorry.
Easyjet too, has to split into 3 companies, an UK one, ans EU one and a Swiss one and never shall they meet.
Every Ryanair flight I've been on smelled like a distillery. Sort of like the old navy days, most Ryanair passengers seem to need their ration of rum to get through the experience.
I have no sympathy for Ryanair. They always skirted the rules just like they did with them Spanish airports that didn’t grant them subsidies or lower fees so they wouldn’t leave the airports. Every airport operator has gotten fed up with their sneaky moves lol
Question: the disruptive passenger was very drunk and aggressive, why wasn't he denied boarding? The gate agents must have noticed his state of idrunkenness
I'm on Ryanairs side here. I fly them quite frequently (13 times this year) and it's really quite nice to fly on.
This seems like a dick move by the CAA to just be like fuck you and your passengers, given they had a spare aircraft available to get people home and it's not like they can control either a disruptive passenger or a mechanical issue.
Some people have extremely foul mouths on them …. so well suited to only travel on Ryanair.
So easily pleased and furthermore, will never, ever be accused of being a Lady.
I doubt compensation would be due here - an unplanned diversion to offload an aggressive and potentially dangerous passenger would fall squarely within the “extraordinary circumstances” exception.
@Santos, what would you consider targeted misinformation campaigns funded by hostile foreign governments?
Customer should go after Ryanair when they engage in deceitful practices then. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
It's funny, Ryanair's whole strategy is 'follow the rules, or you pay.' And NO EXCEPTIONS.
Yet here - they want ongoing exceptions, because they don't want to follow the rules. So yeah, they're in the wrong.
Sure, in a theoretical world where Britain was part of the EU, they could be more efficient with fewer planes serving the combined market. But that's not the situation they're operating in - one of the stupid obvious outcomes of Brexit - so it's not relevant to their argument.
IF they were running with their required baseline of 18 planes, they may be granted an exception - more than they grant for their customers. But they aren't, so that's not justified. CAA - 1, Ryanair - 0.
It's not very easy to sue here in the UK, so good look with that lol. Also this Ryanair's fault for not complying with rules. A stupid rule it may be, but Ryanair basically wants an exemption and treated differently to other airlines.
But the mechanical issue on the aircraft after the diversion that caused the lengthy delay does qualify for compensation.
Exactly. Ryanair can sue the gate agent instead the passenger. But maybe they were happy to sell the pax even more drinks onboard, would be interesting if the pax can prove that 🙂
I wanted to start my post with the recommendation to exchange the words "(sometimes questionable)" in the 3rd line of this blog post by "(always questionable)". That's my stance on Ryanair.
However, after reading the blog post I must admit that for the first time ever I feel sorry for Ryanair. The UK government may have its rules but the rules are crazy and absolutely non sensical as they are a consequence of Brexit. Nationalism in any form is all about fear of not being competitive. This is what led to Brexit and other standup comedians leading larger countries. Applying those nationalistic rules without any flexibility is ultimately harming the people which those rules and their inflexible application pretends to protect.
First time ever I am defending Ryanair!
Except for a small bunch of (already rich) people, that are now much richer, Brexit is bad for everyone. However, why is it that Ryanair is the only problem with serious problems about it? So my views on this are simple: wrong-doing by Ryanair, wrong-doing by UK CAA.