Top quality trolling! 10/10!
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Nice concern troll there. Also, I like the implication that the guy is a spendthrift whoās just trying to leverage his dead family to save a buck. Pity heās not Jewish so you could go for an offensive joke and make it a triple play of useless commenting.
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My last flight on Air France I was glued to the top of the cabin with a brain full of LSD. While it was certainly the most interesting flight I have ever experienced, I cant say for certain it was the most pleasant. It took me 4 hours to work out that The Fugitive was dubbed into French and it wasnt just my confused brain.
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In fact most US airlines DO have special fares and allowances when a close family member dies.
āBy charging for the toilets we are hoping to change passenger behavior so that they use the bathroom before or after the flight,ā Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara told Londonās Daily Mail."
That was in 2010. Outrage ensued and it didnāt happen
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And it never was going to. But it sure did get a lot of column inches. Which was the point.
flown Ryanair when I had to, hated it. EasyJet were far nicer when I flew them instead (years ago). Iām fine with the pay extra for everything model, Iām not fine with being bombarded with adverts, pushed to buy scratchcards and bags of vodka, and stupid jokey cabin crew.
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Wow, scratch cards and vodka? That is way more offensive than anything I have read in this topic to this point. Do they sell cigarettes too?
They SHOULD sell cigarettes. (And of course, matches or a lighter would be extra). If they want to push their reputation ever deeper into the hole, for publicity, that would be the ultimate!
I used to buy an airfair, after checking wikipedias list of low cost airlines operating to and from the target country and then checking all those airlines to see which one offered a combination of price, time and distance from my destination. Alternatively I was cheking to see which airlines operated from the country I wanted to visit and then was looking for connecting flights with different airlines. Essentially was a two step travel to my destination. I did it a few times within a few years and apart from one time (which luckily had bought insurance, god knows why) didnt have any problems.
Was able to get far cheaper fares than expedia would.
It was time consuming and the trips lasted a good while with the added risk if anything went wrong, I would be stranded somewhere with no money or way out but I was young, broke and foolish enough to do it.
As someone who flies a LOT, the neurosurgeon story smacks of complete BS. I have yet to encounter a gate agent who doesnāt ansolutely melt when faced with a story of a family emergency. That and most airlines have special dispensation and policies for exactly such circumstances.
That said, if you buy a ticket on a notoriously cheap and feature-poor airline, you donāt have much cause to complain when you get exactly what you pay for.
Iām puzzled, Cory. You talk as if you travel a lot, yet you seem to know nothing about actually traveling (by air). Which, I suppose, thatās also true of technology, Internet policy, and everything else you write about. </troll>
On international carriers (I mostly have experience with transatlantic flights), one free bag is still standard, and they even feed you! Southwest still gives you two bags free, and theyāre often one of the cheapest domestic carriers in the USA.
I wonder when this changed. About 15 years ago I worked for Northwest, and they certainly had emergency bereavement fares then. They were not free or even cheap, but they were still a lot lower than walking up and buying a full fare ticket at the last minute - the bereavement fare might have been hundreds of dollars, when the full fare ticket would have been thousands.
I wish I could join you, Cory, and not fly them. Alas, if I want to visit people in the UK (and I do from time to time) the difference between Ryanair and other airlines is Ā£50 for a return with Ryanair and Ā£500+ for a return ticket with British Airways or SAS. For me, thatās the difference between going and not going.
That said, I havenāt had any real bad experiences with them. All my flights have been incident-free. I wish they had a better refund policy though, as Iāve lost some money due to schedule changes and unused tickets. But if I could, Iād stop flying with them for being such huge bastards as they are.
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Iāve only flown with RyanAir once, back in 2007. There was nothing wrong with the plane or the flight but the complete lack of Customer Service - not so much a lack, as negative customer service really - meant that I swore I would NEVER fly with them ever again unless they were the absolute only option. Thankfully, they never have been.
(I had paid at the time of booking for hold baggage, which they denied at check-in; made me queue to pay again; refused to let me get ahead in the queue even when our gate was about to close - we had arrived with plenty of time to spare - and it took me nearly 6 months to get a refund.)
Have never flown with them and never will. I look on them as an interesting experiment into how much crap passengers and staff will put up with and I choose not to participate. Donāt for a minute believe they will really change while OāLeary is running it.
Search You Tube for Cheap Flights by Fascinating Aida - very funny with quite a lot of swearing!
You get what you pay for with Ryanair, but what I pay for is a flight between more convenient airports. If you can afford BA or SAS, it doesnāt make sense to fly from London to the place Ryanair pretend is Stockholm, 100km away. But my friend lives in Nykƶping, 7km from that airport.
Although I can afford BA, Iād prefer to fly with Ryanair to a small Eastern European townās airport ā which doesnāt have delays, queues, or multiple terminals. With BA, LOT, etc that would be two flights. Buy a sandwich in the terminal, take some headphones, and ignore the crap. Itās only 2Ā½ hours.
For those that canāt afford better ā and that included me, not that long ago ā the anti-budget airline attitude seems very elitist. Do you only travel first class on trains? Is it wrong that I usually travel standard class?
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does āyourselfā count as that one item?
By far the worst attitude Iāever come across from airline personnel was at the Air France transfer counter in Paris (CDG), Rather that tell the story Iāll just say that employees do not carry a name badge, will not tell you their name (or even some sort of employee number if the company wants to protect employees privacy but keep them accountable for their actions) when asked so we can make a complaint.
Why was the guy in such a hurry? His family wasnāt going anywhere, and heād have to be one hell of a neurosurgeon to reanimate them.
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At the time (Fall, 2009), the airlines that had a policy were similar to United which currently offers āa 5% discount on fares (roundtrip or one-way) in the event of a death or serious illness (requiring hospitalization or hospice care) of an immediate family memberā (see: http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/specialneeds/compassion/default.aspx) . In the end, it was hundreds of dollars cheaper to purchase a last minute ticket online than it was to go through the airline bereavement policies. Your mileage may vary.
