Ryanair is known for its low base fares and high ancillary fees. Well, the carrier has just added its most expensive ancillary fee to date, though I can’t imagine that all that many passengers will actually be paying this.
Ryanair threatens to fine passenger misconduct
Ryanair claims to have introduced a new £500 fine for disruptive passengers whose unruly behavior results in them being offloaded from the aircraft. As Ryanair describes this decision, passengers expect to travel in a comfortable (questionable, no?) and stress-free environment with an on-time arrival, free from unnecessary disruptions caused by a tiny number of unruly passengers.
Ryanair claims that unruly passenger behavior is an industry-wide issue affecting all airlines, but Ryanair wants to tackle unruly passenger behavior for the benefit of passengers and crew. The airline will continue to pursue disruptive passengers for civil damages, but at a minimum, they will now be issued a £500 fine.
Here’s how a Ryanair spokesperson describes this move:
“It is unacceptable that passengers are made suffer unnecessary disruption because of one unruly passenger’s behaviour. To help ensure that our passengers and crew travel in a comfortable and stress-free environment, without unnecessary disruption caused by a tiny number of unruly passengers, we have introduced a £500 fine, which will be issued to any passengers offloaded from aircraft as a result of their misconduct. While these are isolated events which happen across all airlines, disruptive behaviour in such a confined shared space is unacceptable, and we hope that our proactive approach will act as a deterrent to eliminate this unacceptable behaviour onboard our aircraft.”
How will Ryanair actually enforce this penalty?
At the end of the day, it seems that Ryanair’s intent is primarily to deter poor passenger behavior, rather than actually generating a significant amount of revenue from this.
One certainly wonders how Ryanair would go about enforcing this policy. I mean, sure, the airline can send someone a bill, but actually getting them to pay may be a stretch. Ryanair serves many countries, and if people are happy just not flying Ryanair again, one wonders if the airline would pursue them.
As you can see, this fee is specific to those who are offloaded before departure, and doesn’t apply to those who might cause a diversion, or something else. In recent times, Ryanair claims to be going after passenger who cause diversions, and charging them for costs incurred.
Since a majority of people don’t have enough savings to cover the cost of an expensive diversion, I also wonder how often Ryanair has actually recovered those amounts.
Ultimately, the motive here is pretty clear. Ryanair is a massive airline operating thousands of flights per day. The airline also gets some of Europe’s rowdier passengers. So these fees and threats are probably more about trying to deter this behavior and get publicity for being an airline with strict rules. That’s fair enough, because no one wants to deal with an unruly passenger.
Bottom line
Ryanair is threatening to fine passengers £500 if they’re offloaded from a flight due to their behavior. This follows repeated threats to charge passengers for costs incurred from a diversion that’s due to passenger behavior.
I respect Ryanair’s desire to minimize disruptions, given the number of flights the airline operates, plus the number of “partiers” who fly with the airline. I’m not sure to what extent these threats deter poor behavior, but…
What do you make of this Ryanair misconduct fee?
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