Under Ryan Air's spell

Time and time again I've said: "I will never use this airline again!", only to find myself suffering on yet another of their flights a couple of months later. How does Ryan Air manage to keep us under their spell?

One of their pilots, who had the bad luck of sitting next to me on my last flight - having to patiently defend their sales tactic and much more, gave me some inside information.

It all looks so attractive at first; £20 for a round trip to Stockholm, Rome or Paris. But as everyone knows who has used this airline before, in the end the ticket often ends up costing as much as, or more, than BA, SAS, KLM or any of it's more decent competitors.

First the expensive taxes, then £10 for paying by card and another £5 to check in on-line is the minimum added.

Checking in luggage is another £20, and if you haven't checked in on-line it's another £40 penalty fee charged at the airport, and every single kg of over-weight over the mere 10kg limit will cost you £40.

Since the airports where Ryan Air lands are often long distances outside the destination city, add another £30-40 for trains and busses.


How they get the best pilots on the market

No designated seats, queuing up like cattle up to an hour before boarding, revolting food to rip-off prices, extremely annoying music at boarding and landing, generally bad service and ugly and cheapish looking interior, but still - their flights are booked to the last, un-foldable seat.

Apparently the Irish carrier made a pre-tax profit of £420m in the six months to 30 September 2010.

One must really compliment the airline on a successful marketing campaign. But I think what really annoys me is the greedy way of little extra charges here and there, and that nothing is spent on the comfort of the passengers.

"Why are there no pockets in the seat in front of you?" I asked the pilot next to me. "Well, it's all to save time in between flights - the less newspapers and litter the more time saved for the crew." He explained slightly embarrassed.

After opening up about the airline’s poor staff policies and telling me that a colleague of his was refused a day off on his wedding day, I of course wondered why he chose to work for them. He replied that: "For pilots it's one of the best paying airlines!".

I was both shocked and relieved by his answer. At least I should be in good hands of skilled captains – I always feared that security must be dangerously saved on as well. That is, if I ever fly with them again.