Nearly 140 million people travel on the Worst Airline
Ryanair has been ranked the worlds worst airline again by Which? for the sixth year in a row and with it came the the surge of “I hate ryanair” posts on social media.
But really, who cares? Passengers clearly don’t, Passengers numbers with the Irish budget airline were up 8% in 2018 where they flew almost 140 million passengers.
It is very easy to sit behind a keyboard and post about how bad Ryanair is, and lets face it, it is bad when it comes to customer service, but I can almost guarantee that if those same keyboard warriors needed to get someone and Ryanair was the cheapest, they would be on board quicker than you can say “check in charge”.
The reason is simple. Ryanair get people to places they want to go cheap. The average Ryanair flight is under two hours, their flight times are good, they use modern aircraft that aren’t decades old and their crew meet the same standards as every other airline.
Sure, you are going to be subjected to a continuous sales pitch but if I can fly from Bristol to Spain for £20 then I will quite happily plug the headphones in and let them carry on.
In February last year I flew from Manchester to Frankfurt with Ryanair. The flight was on time, we arrived early, it was safe, pleasant and during the 1 hour 40 mins flight I had the choice of whatever snacks I wanted to buy. Including reserved seats it cost £36 return. I cant even get a train from Bristol to London for that.
Of course you are welcome to pay £200 plus and fly with a legacy carrier and get a free snack and drink if you like, and on a longer flight, most would but if your on a plane for a couple of hours, is it worth it?
Sure they have their problems, the management side is prone to “outbursts” in the media and they really really don’t like paying compensation when their staff go on strike.
There are also questions about how they treat their staff and most would argue that they can certainly do that better. I’ve personally had run-ins with them on the media side but then, what airline likes to be criticised.
Aside from their Human Resources issues, I find myself growing ever fonder of the Swords based budget airline.
But when it comes down to it Ryanair isn’t trying to be the best airline in the world. That is not, and never will be their aim. They are trying to be the busiest, and fly the most people for as low a price as possible and to be honest, I don’t have a problem with that.
Ryanair is the 5th busiest airline in the world by passenger numbers. That’s the accolade that matters not some customer service ranking by Which?.
It also has to be noted that Ryanair is going through changes and is trying to get better at the Customer Service side through a programme called “always getting better“, although I fear Michael O’Leary may need to either retire or be gagged if they really want to change their public perception.
