Ok, As I was booking flights down to cork for the blog awards, I noticed something a bit strange. When I went to change my flight times, all of the prices on the flights had changed to “Total Cost of Flight 0.00”.
BIG hello to all the Ryanair staff 
I worked out what had triggered this series of events. While trying to avoid the dreaded Ryanair credit card charges, I jumped into the Ryanair Voucher section. There are no card charges on vouchers, so it can be a good way to avoid extra fees.
At the same time I had the booking window open on the Services section of the booking. When I went back to the Confirm / Select page all the prices had changed to 0.00.
Pass this on!! .. See you all on Saturday at the !!
CLARIFICATION: I did not claim to complete the booking process for a free flight. I found a bug that showed a 0.00 price listed beside a flight. Orders could not go past the passenger details page. See the less than constructive comments left by Ryanair staff below.
Update: I have changed the title from “FREE” to 0.00.
I’m loving this! Check out what the guy’s from sent me today!
So did you have to buy the vouchers?
Nope, just went to the voucher page .. I assume it cleared the session?
Doesn’t work… it doesn’t allow you to enter the names of the passengers and when you hit confirm on the next screen it just kicks you back to flight searches…. oh well….
Too good to be true I’m afraid – not working
Well done love to see that kind of stuff.
If Mick O’Leary has any sense he will offer you a project to test his website properly
Well done again
Beat the system!!!!!
Johnny
Hahaha loverly find!
I was able to re-create this as far as getting the price down to 0.00 however when you click “confirm” it gives an error message:
“An error condition exists which is preventing you from continuing. You may wish to start over and try again.
If you continue to get this error message, please contact the airline.
Additional details about the error:
An error has occurred. Please try again”
doesnt work I’m afraid. After pressing back from the voucher page you do indeed see all the prices set back to 0. However, after you enter in your contact details and confirm, it just brings you to a new search page.
I can get all the way through with free flights untill the page where you would enter the passenger details but those inputs are missing. I tried inserting them via firebug but it didn’t work either.
Have actually managed to buy tickets Jason?
jason!
you’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is!
you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!
…and once again the greater internet fuckwad theory is proven … enjoy your saturday evening at the blog awards, see you there!
Hello Ryanair staffer .. I have not lied, I found a bug in your site that allows a user to see a 0.00 price listed beside a flight. Yes, I have cleared a session, but you have not prevented session jumping! I hope to god a Ryanair management type reads this.
Crappy CMS such as wordpress .. its a blog? I put my mobile phone number online as im a freelance developer. At least I provide a phone number on my website, no premium lines here
This also applies:
DAMN – My ass just fell off
Hehe – I found a bug that lets me show anything I want on your site.
All I have to do is put something along the lines of javascript:void(document.write(‘hehe’)) into the address bar, and I can do whatever I want with your site ( or indeed any other site ).
I’m not sure what you think you’ve achieved here – that wouldn’t have gotten you through to the back end. You wouldn’t even have been able to enter passenger information.
You must never have seen a decent exploit, if you think this is something worth bragging about.
There is another exploit you could try – wait until we’re running a promotion when we give away a million odd seats for free anyway.
What’s the line Alan Sugar used to say on that TV program? You know the one where he tried to be like Donald Trump?
Nice one Jason
Hello @ Another Ryanair Staffer. I’m just highlighting a bug, no big deal like… take it like a man, say thank you and fix it. Problem solved.
Im hardly looking to find hard-core exploits .. I’m a customer, who found a fuck up and wrote about it.
Ha ha ha ha – I LOVE watching big holes being dug, but at the same time I am somewhat puzzled at the level of bile.
Jason
You didn’t actually discover a bug on bookryanair.
You changed some numbers on your own screen tricking yourself into thinking that you could get a free flight, without actually succeeding.
Well known for years, and many others have tried it, ending up paying the full price for the flights after all.
All good income for Ryanair.
(Not good enough effort for a “project” I’m afraid)
Lads, you’re all fired!
Stupid feckers!
I for one am shocked at how rude and unfriendly Ryanair staff are coming across in the comments. Oh no, wait…
OK, now come on.. You have bad code and haven’t locked down your sessions, thats a bit different to me changing “some numbers” on my screen.
Think of all the other potential customers who stumbled across this same issue and cancelled a booking because of it.
Time to grow up a bit and take it on the chin.
Many thanks to the Ryanair staffers for giving this post legs. Senior management will be delighted.
Maybe i should post this into some of the news desks
They’re obvously plankin it that Mikey might here about it and freak out – very sad – come across as morons
Website is not perfect, Life is not perfect…
If you would work in your pathetic life on a such big project in a such busy environment with so little resources, you would know that the most important is to have usual user behavior scenarios working rather than spending time on improbable and harmless things.
We very well know about these anomalies and unless it is not critical we are not going to sacrifice time to this.
If you would be a serious programmer you would know these things and would not post any of this on the web if you would think it can cause us troubles, but you would report to us directly.
Even you did not discover anything major you are still trying to benefit from this.
If I would be you I would think of consequences this can have.
If you would be a serious developer you would work out your About page as well. Or is this really about you? What is that bunch of links there? I could give my review of those websites and it would not be positive probably, but really I don’t know if you actually worked on them or what exactly you did and how big influence you had to make changes there. So keep working on yourself and don’t post bollocks.
Ryanair UK staff – “report to us directly” .. sure, give me your direct phone number and name and ill report issues to you directly. Stop hiding behind your anonymity and office network. Low blows about me personally isn’t going to help your situation.
“If I would be you I would think of consequences this can have.” – That sounds quite threatening a tone to take from an employee on a company network. I have stated factual information, nothing else.
The websites on my about page are people who I have worked for or with. I’m quite transparent about that. I worked directly on the projects, with as much influence as anyone else.. Anyone who knows me would tell you the same.
hi Jason – I was very interested to see this earlier today. Were you able to actually book and confirm a flight for free following the steps above? I tried myself earlier and got to the screens as mentioned above by EB.
Woohoo – the race to the bottom has been won! No frills culture applies to manners, customer service and common decency.
The good news is that also have flights from DUB to ORK and I’m happily booked on them.
Noticable from their homepage:
* No baggage charges
* No check-in fees
* 30 minutes check-in time*
* Allocated seating
* Complimentary newspaper
* Service with a smile
I’m curious; is defensive aggression something Ryainair provide training in, or is it something they explicitly look for when hiring someone?
“so keep working on yourself and don’t post bollocks.” – pot. kettle. black
“If you would be a serious developer you would work out your About page as well. Or is this really about you? What is that bunch of links there?”
Trained in aggression and devastatingly insightful. Every day Ryanair piss off more customers with their bullshit arrogance. Aer Arann all the way.
@Jason
Many of ordinary computer users/customers did find a way to report to us directly…
I am not entitled to deal with public nor have time…
It’s not about me, it’s about you…
It’s not a threat, its advice for you to present yourself better… but of course you think of threat straightaway, because that fits you better.
About page – this was advice again, think about it…
@Lar Veale
Happy flying…
@Niall
Defensive aggression of Ryanair stuff is less than offensive aggression of customers and each stuff member gains this gradually.
Offensive aggression of customers depends on customer’s ignorance, Ryanair restrictions, Ryanair policy, strictness and low prices as lower the prices are more people are traveling with bigger intellectual diversity.
@Ryanair staff #3
“I am not entitled to deal with public nor have time…” <– you have the time to post on a public article saying that you will not fix a bug. are you entitled to do this? do you speak for Ryan Air?
“About page – this was advice again, think about it…” <– you refuse to accept a simple bug report yet are happy to give ‘advice’.
“but of course you think of threat straightaway, because that fits you better.” <– ah, a psychoanalyst. can you read minds as well? what number am I thinking of?
another thing… “lower the prices are more people are traveling with bigger intellectual diversity.” <– are you saying that if you lower the prices, then you allow people with a larger range of intelligence to travel?
that’s inciteful. if it’s true, then you are saying “Ryan Air – we cater to idiots”. or “Ryan Air, because people who use other air-lines are idiots”. either way, it’s a bad message.
@Ryanair staff
I have found some other bugs on your website.
For some reason it always has some crappy holiday insurance chosen by default when purchasing a flight. (why?)
For some reason the price goes up by 10 euro when you choose your credit card. (You should really change your payment gateway if they are charging you this much per transaction)
And also, I don’t now if I am using an older browser or something (Firefox 3), but your website looks like it was designed by someone in 1996.
Oh hold on, I just remembered you do all of this to CONTROL and SCREW people for everything you can.
Jeez Mr. Ryanair Staffer – would you just hold up your hands and admit you were wrong. If you guys can’t even get the website right because of small insignificant issues…. how much else do other Ryanair staff overlook – god forbid it’s not the planes….
Ryanair staff people – nice to see you’re a bunch of ignorant idiots. Leaving stupid comments on a blog from your offices wasn’t very bright:
@Tom Doyle
Yes, I am wrong, I was stupid that I even got into this debate…
Have a nice day…
JR NOTE: I CAN NOT CONFIRM THAT THIS IS FROM A RYANAIR STAFF MEMBER
Well ryanair staff #1.#2 and #3. Yesterday I had the exciting experience of booking a flight on your website. Using firefox three I tried to book a flight using vouchers of €50 and €25 respectively. That equals €75 in case you didn’t know that. The reason I speculate on calculations with regard to ryanair is that after adding these vouchers I was being told I still owed €8…..how does 75 – 63 = -8? perhaps mathematical laws have changed since I left school…. A change over to IE7 allowed me to complete my booking…but guess what? 75 – 63 = 0 change on the ryanair site. From T&C’s “If a voucher is partially redeemed the remaining balance is void”. Fantastic sales technique introduced whereby using a voucher means you use it all in one go or wave good bye to that left over few euros.
Instead of wasting your time making derogatory comments in piddling english try fixing the bugs on your site. Being such expert “Senior” developers I’m sure you’ve heard of chrome. checkout your site in there…I just love the voucher page in particular……..
Ryanair staff #3, you could have stopped at the word “stupid”.
Some companies dont appreciate when someone points out a flaw. I think all companies should have a feedback section to help people like @bridget . The customer is always right, that is rule 1 of all business because thats how to maintain a good public image.
This is getting interesting
I am amazed at the rudeness and aggression of ryanair staffers. Why can’t they accept the bug report and fix it. I myself would be ashamed to work on a site which has as its #1 mission to screw customers out of extra charges. Just like to remind folks that there are ways to avoid the extortion of “credit card charges” when booking ryanair flights detailed here:
To be fair to ryanair, I would assume that the reason the credit card charges are so high for non debit / ryanair cards, is because of the exposure they have to charge backs. Fees are only a small percentage of the cost of processing credit cards. The real issue for non debit / branded cards is that you have much more of a chance of being hit with a charge backs if someone cancels a payment. You have to remember ryanair is dealing in massive volume. Verified by visa and the likes helps this a bit (you know the page that asks you for a password when you are making a payment.) but the issue is you end up loosing up to 20% of people after enabling it.
If you notice, 3v also has no fees. I assume this is a commercial arrangement. Id say they do not take debit cards such as laser because they are using an international merchant. Every country (even within Europe) has a whole range of different payment methods. To keep it simple, the merchant choose the most popular payment methods and run with them.
So yes, the credit card charges suck.. but that said .. you can avoid them. I have to admire Ryanair for that, they still give you the choice.
There’s no excuse for the rudeness… I really would appreciate people noticing any minor errors on my site and I would be delighted if people highlighted them. That gives me an opportunity to correct it and improve users’ experience.
If Ryanair’s website had a different “minor bug” – say if the company logo had been accidentally replaced with a rival’s – then the functionality would be the same, you would still be buying tickets from Ryanair, but sure as eggs is eggs Ryanair would have changed that without any fuss. It would have been embarrassing, but it would have been fixed.
This bug obviously isn’t a problem to Ryanair from what its employees are saying, so I wonder why they are making such a fuss? If they are concerned that their company’s reputation is ailing, they are doing that themselves plenty.
The irony, is that with as much time as the Ryanair Staff has wasted (while also in the wrong), they could have spent that time adding value to their company by fixing the bug.
This is literally the best blog post I have ever read.
I almost bought flights with Ryanair last week, but the interface is so unusable, and the design so awful (purposefully?) that I was unsure. But the constant attempts to throw in insurance and extra charges pushed me out.
Reading the Ryanair staff responses on here makes me so glad I didnt. What utter arrogance. We all face bugs and problems on our sites and should be grateful to the web community for pointing them out. Often the best online brands get involved and take criticism as a positive thing.
Ryanair has a lot to learn.
Fantastic entertainment! Typical Ryanair response to someone doing them a favor – “when you see water flowing uphill you’ll know an act of kindness has been repaid”.
“We very well know about these anomalies and unless it is not critical we are not going to sacrifice time to this.”
Unless the anomaly is NOT critical you will NOT spend time on it?
Can someone please run that one past me again….
If that is the quality of the logic behind the website then I’m not surprised its doing odd things.
Even if the person writing it is a unskilled uneducated person the fact is that the IP addresses would seem to be Ryanair’s so it would be interesting to see if its company policy to let their staff post incoherent threatening rants on the internet during working hours.
People, please stop typing ” javascript:void(document.write(%E2%80%99hehe%E2%80%99))” into the web browser ..
Hats off to you Jason for wanting to highlighting a problem…and shame on you Ryanair Staffer #1, #2 – infinity for being rude, condescending, arrogant and non-responsive.
No wonder airline customers of every intellectual diversity, get disenchanted with the “Service” that airlines beat the drum about and hostile about the lack of respect, appreciation and general rudeness. Travelers develop a “love-hate” relationship towards traveling due to the attitude of the airline staff. Very few airlines serve their customers anymore…add Ryanair to the list.
Ryanair…once again you’ve proven your metal. General Management of Ryanair owe Jason an apology, and a free ticket to fly.
Cheers Jason…you’re hired.
Good link bait.
What miserable customer service.. Whether what Jason did is right or wrong is no longer the issue. The response given by Ryanair was totally whacked out. I think they owe not only Jason an apology but also Matt at WordPress.
If this was a marketing ploy, it sure didn’t work. I personally would never fly Ryanair after seeing this outburst. I’ll bet Matt doesn’t either. Whoever was responsible for this outburst needs to lose their job, regardless of their position.
Ryanair uses Navitaire’s booking software on its website so basically ye are all wrong! Navitaire provide the booking software for like 90 airlines :
Aer Arran use it too – just an earlier version. If you see any airline booking website that has ‘skylights’ or ‘skysales’ in the url you are using Navitaire software.
They are a great company based in Utah, USA and their software is amazing. Sessions can be extremely tricky when you are talking about multiple servers in multiple locations.
So with this said Im not sure why the Ryanair staff were taking this so personally.
But Jason, the title of this post is ‘Ryanair no credit card fee + free flight bug’ and then you say ‘CLARIFICATION: I did not claim to complete the booking process for a free flight. ‘ Come on now, if anything this is RyanairSpeak!! The least it is is link bait.
PS – WordPress is great and can be considered a CMS in my opinion. Drupal really rocks though!
Wow, talk about some bite on those remarks from Ryanair.
“It’s not a threat, its advice for you to present yourself better”, says Ryanair staff #3.
Oh, sweet irony…
I think my favourite points are:
- The Ryanair staff think that they should be as agressive to the public as their customers (presumeably when dissastisfied) are to them.Yep that’s why you’re buried in an office coding somewhere…
- The Ryanair staff think that being on the ryanair.com dev team is the pinnacle of software development work (“projects”) – hah what a joke!
- Despite being apparant web developers, they decide to lay into WordPress (for why?)
I also love to watch people dig holes. It wouldn’t have been a big deal before but it just shows, every company needs a policy on how their staff are interacting online. They’ve lost me as a customer. Oh wait, they already lost me when they redirected my flightlast year at a minutes notice.
I find the apparent and complete inability to even string together a coherent sentence together the most laughable aspect of this. The ridiculous nature of the content (after you have deciphered it) is only compounded by the fact that RyanAir are being represented by somebody with no regard for spelling and grammar, not to mention the basics of IP addresses.
Fire the intern or work experience hire that wrote these things, perhaps with some misguided loyalties to their temporary employers.
Greetings from Reddit.
Thanks to the Ryanair “serious programmers” for adding plenty of hilarious commentary. so, what, “serious programmers” just buy in other people’s software?
Just another reason to add to the very very long list of why I will not EVER fly RyanAir (EasyJet all the way if I need a cheap seat).
If the option is RyanAir or walk….I will walk!
I will add that whilst the do operate within the law and the safety guidelines they do like to push the limits. One day something will go badly wrong for them and I hope that everything does add up (this is just my view and is based on murmerings from those in the maintenance industry).
Makes you wonder how RyanAir deals with issue reports for their planes? I’m impressed how open to feedback they appear to be.
As someone said before, the race to the bottom has really been won.
LOL, it’s probably not evern ryanair staff, probably BA or Easyjet staff trying to stir the pot! =D
NICE IDEA HOW TO MAKE MONEY JASON
To attract people to comment on one of the most controversial company…
Only you need to do is to get into Ryanair HQ building and write some nasty comments from their network
WELL DONE!
I’ll tell you something else. bEfore working as a web monkey I served bar in a Dublin venue. Amongst others, Ryanair used to book in for staff drinks.
They were the most obnoxious crowd I’ve ever served with the possible exception of The Barristers.
Most companies laid on the bar but tight-fisted Ryanair only partially subsidised the staff drinks. The general atmosphere in the venue was just like that moment before a riot kicks off. So I’m not surprised by the IP-jockeys posting here.
Also, my unsympathetic opinion formed over several hours several times is that they’re quite thick, generally speaking.
And they were falling around the place by 10 (can’ t hold it). Even uber-nerds Microsoft lasted longer than that.
.
Had the misfortune of flying with RyanAir to Berlin and back last year. Worst airline I have ever flown with, and I do a lot of travelling. If you think their website is bad try being one of 600 people from two delayed flights left in a corridor for 3 hours with no one to let you know what is happening.
Never again
Epic Reputation management fail. Hilarious.
I admit I skimmed but where has it been confirmed that the three individuals claiming to be Ryanair support staff are indeed so?
Ryanair staff being rude? What a suprise. I used them once and never again. They aren’t even cheaper than Easyjet or FlyBe. They’re basically the street whores of the cheap travel world
Let’s admit it, it’s quite easy to mouth off online. If I was being spoken to by f*ckwit tw@t at some two bit airline then I’d invite him to meet me in person, let’s see how mouthy he was then!
Ahh come on people – it’s not a real ryanair staffer.
Sheez…
I wonder how much money Ryanair have lost due to their employee’s attitude to customer care…
I can safely say that I will never fly with them after reading their comments on this blog and I advise my friends and family to avoid them as well.
I used to be a homeless rodeo clown but now i am a world class magician !
First Ryanair official response
to Quote ”
Stephen McNamara from Ryanair said:
“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.
“It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.
“Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel”.
Go ahead, make their day…
“
Wow, Ryanair staff, PR team must be so pleased with you!
eeeks… some1 kill the ryanair website!! eeks.. my pet fish(if i had one that is) cld make a better website!
God, would you cut these Ryanair guys some slack! Sure they are complete assh*les, cheapskates, and bad developers to boot but remember, web sites are complicated things with lots of complicated parts…they can’t possibly be responsible for everything little detail. This is the airline industry we are talking about. If they applied your nit-picky, “always has to be perfect” philosophy to their aircraft they would never get anywhere.
Never heard of Ryanair before but will definitely never fly them now. The venom. Why so angry?
Ryanair: Thanks so much for making your company culture so clear. I will gladly stay away from your airline on all my future travels as I choose to do business with people who are pleasant and courteous. These are obviously traits that Ryanair does not cultivate in their employees.
Development bugs and code issues are SO not the point at this point. Gotta love that official response, too. Funnily, Stephen McNamara, that “lunatic blogger” was a customer. But thank you for today’s lesson in how not to be! I’m now wiser. Oops. Guess that upshot in intelligence means I’m no longer permitted to fly RyanAir? Ah, shucks!
Have you seen Ryanair’s response to this on
“Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel”.
I sincerely hope that their air staff are more in control than their web development team so that all they’re ‘driving down’ is the cost of air travel!
I have a hard time believing that Ryan Air staff can post these remarks. But if they indeed are who they claim to be I feel really sorry for them and for Ryan Air. My condolances.
Do I get to make the 100th reply to this post?
Ryanair staff #3 should have had his own category at the Blog Awards. Best Threatening Comment in a Russian Mafia Accent.
Quote, Ryanair Staff #2 :
“We very well know about these anomalies and unless it is not critical we are not going to sacrifice time to this.
If you would be a serious programmer you would know these things and would not post any of this on the web if you would think it can cause us troubles, but you would report to us directly.
Even you did not discover anything major you are still trying to benefit from this.
If I would be you I would think of consequences this can have.”
Isn’t it fun to read about the busy Ryanair staff, who don’t have time to fix a bug, but do have time to comment on some guys blog? Maybe staff #2 should take some time off to learn proper english. “If you would be………” Come on! A first grader could tell you that his english sucks… Oh, FYI staff #2; you never say would or could after an if. You’re welcome
No wonder Ryanair suck, underpaid staff due to incompetence and lack of education 
I have posted a complaint on GetSatisfaction.com.
See
Join in and vote against RyanAir!
I think they owe Jason a public apology…
Thanks,
Patrick
Read ‘Naked Conversations’ lately where they discussed the best way to handle negative press by a) responding in the first place and b) being positive. Maybe someone should send Ryanair a copy…
Booked with them today, would have thought twice if I had read this first. Correction, I would have thought for a third time, the second time I re-thought was when I was charged £20 to pay by Visa.
Ryanair Staffers,
What a bunch of rude, aggressive and ignorant posters (or are you just one person, as your level of English seems pretty poor).
Just goes to show the belief and even disdain Ryanair seems to have for all its clients.
When will people ever realise that there are REAL airlines STILL offering certain levels of service, good customer relations, fly you to real airports, don’t contantly sue everybody left right and centre, and ALSO offer cheap fares (often cheaper than bloody Ryanair after they’ve screwed you for everything they can think of)? Some of there airlines include, oh let’s see, yes those REAL airlines such as Aer Lingus, Aer Arann, Easyjet (as a pure low-cost carrier, 1000 times better than FR), British Airways, etc…
This ignorance protrayed by people claiming to be Ryanair employees just shows what a bunch of unprofessionals work in that airline (not all, many are good, and the good ones usually escape Ryanair for a real airline as soon as the can).
Maybe it’s time for Auf Wiedersehen Ryanair!
When I worked in pricing in a small US airline all my friends wanted me to find bargains for them, so I would sometimes publish a fare which carried a $1 fare (had my friend on the phone until he booked it), then withdrew the fare basis code. Not so hard, just not so fair.
After using Rip off ryanair for a long time I’m now willing to pay a little extra to fly with a company that is not so arrogant
Wow! I never knew what a bunch of mean, ill-sprited, self-righteous assholes work there – that defintely explains their customer service. Jason, kudos to you for trying to do the right thing!
This is absolutely unbelievable, especially when the official spokesperson from Ryanair carries on ranting where his staffers left off. Does Stephen McNamara even know what he’s referring to?
The whole thing is bizarre, it reads like that old “I fart in your general direction” sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the Ryanair staff posing as the French soldiers, and they definitely just lost a potential customer in me.
I’m amazed by the stupidity of the Ryanair staffers.
I must say that your title is misleading as well as the content…
you didn’t book any flight for free and neither you tried (else you will have notice that the bug is actually a developer overlooking that by changing the sessionid you will get all 0, while instead the developer should have simply clean up all your data and send you back to homepage).
So technically speaking you didn’t find a bug, just a usability issue.
Advertise it in this way not only is wrong, but also incorrect, in fact your bug is not working at all.
If you are developer, i wouldn’t give you any project because this shows your big mouth and your non-knowledge on how to develop.
The post of the developer from Ryanair is very unpolite and wrong, but he is saying actually something true, you didn’t discover any bug at all and you are advertise it as if it is…
Hi Jason
The word has reached the little country of Norway
Ha ha!
This bullshit statements from Ryanair are nothing new
it seems that the company have bigger problems than bad customer service.
they also have really bad manners.
i wonder where they find employees like that?
I have to admit, this post has made very little difference to my life. I already promised myself a long time ago that I would never fly with Ryanair again.
Stephen McNamara and Ryanair simply know that the concept of consumer power is overrated. They’re proving the point that no matter how rude or the lack of quality, people will always go for cheap.
And after checking out FRs only partly translated Swedish ver of their page, I’m convinced their pricing policies stem from old horse-selling practices. The €5 “credit card fee” is translated as “service fee” on their list of fees. Has nothing to do with credit cards, its just FR extras. Guess the same goes for the “taxes and fees” added to the first price. All compensates for a too low advertisment price, used solely to attract customers.
This makes 50 SEK tickets cost 500 SEK in reality, it still is cheap, but Im quite sure this is fraudulent sales in Swedish law and punishable in court.
Can’t get why Ryan cant comply with the law, and why they cant translate all to proper Swedish. Theyre not selling horses on a 19th cent market!
Nice to see that Ryanair is a shit corporation through all levels of it’s staff.
It seems the Ryanair dev team are just as retarded as their flight staff
twat. stop wasting time and get a proper job you loser.
Congratulations to Ryanair staff, whose shocking attitude ensures that they won’t see a penny from me.
Another great reason not to fly Ruinair! I decided never to fly with them a few years ago when they charged disabled people to use wheelchairs. This reinforces my opinion of them.
From now on if anyone points out glitches or bugs in any projects I work on, I shall follow Ryanair’s example.
I don’t have anyone on my team who’s quite so defensive aggressive so I’ll just get a rabid dog to deal with the complaints by mashing the keyboard with his paws and seeing what comes out.
Shouldn’t be too far removed from those wonderfully composed replies by Ryanair staff.
This is linkbait right?
I glazed over about half way down but, amazing how the Ryanair comments have drowned out an important point, this blogger said in bold letters “free flight bug”, when there is plainly no free flight bug at all, end of.
Quite brilliant SEO attempt, crap blog post.
There seems to be rather large amount of trackbacks for the ryanaryans to be proud of
Manners are more important than saving a couple of quid.
Hey
Interesting how they can leave this kind of bug untreated in their site – nevertheless – I found a bug on their site a few years ago, I was logging in to change some details of an existing booking, but it kept giving me different flights for different people, and also granting me access to amend this persons booking (which of course I didn’t).
As soon as I found this, I called them up and my finding were matched with something along the lines of “its ok, the website does that from time to time” – scary!!
On a different note, if you would like to avoid the card charges, just get a Visa Electron card. Open an “Easy Cash” account with Halifax building society – it has online account management etc etc, so a total no brainer!!
Regards
MDN
I’ve only taken one Ryan Air flight in my life, and it was a horrible experience. The staff were so rude. This news confirms my decision to never use them again. Let’s hope that this staff attitude does not extend to aircraft safety…
I’m glad to see this post has made it to The Times online:
One more idiot finding small bugs in a bigger system and giving the impression that someone’s not at the switch.
This guy’s looking for work, and hasn’t got a clue.
The blogger from Ryanair does not represent the company, but was on track with his/her comments. This guy has way too much time looking at other peeps work. The site is fine, has a few bugs that do not come up unless you’re trying to circumvent the process…big deal.
The Ryanair Blogger was right when said that if he had been an actual professional he would have reported it to them (maybe gotten siome work from it ?) Instead of being an WebDouche attention junkie and boasting about naught.
Oh man, which is funnier, an idiot (irish, what do you expect?) blogger (i call him this because its obvious he’s not a developer -or not a good one) or the response from Ryanair.
You look stupid for posting a so-called bug, that isnt a bug at all and means jack shit. You also look stupid for not following the proper rules of non disclosure until a decent enough time has passed for them to fix.
But then Ryan air also look stupid now, for having a childish blog war on someone elses site and not knowing what wordpress is. If someone at my company posted like that on a public internet blog…. FIRED….
However, your attempt at PR has worked, maybe you can get a job for AOL HAHAHAHAHAHA. They have no coding skills either.
Ryanair stuff … you do not provide an email address to contact your website staff for troubles like this one (harmless, whatever) and REAL troubles.
I was not able to communicate you one SECURITY PROBLEM which could expose some user sensible data. Please contact me ASAP since I do not know if you already solved this problem I am talking about. Thank You.
Well, I’d not fly Ryanair anyway… the risk of death from under-serviced aircraft and pilots who take risky and frankly dangerous landings (i.e Cork, lots of documented evidence of this!!) I’d fly anyone else before I choose RA.
Any clues why they are so cheap? They are awful!
Just found this thanks to the wonders of Twitter and El Reg. Such a funny post made even funnier by the comments. I’m gobsmacked at Ryanair’s reaction. What were they thinking? You can understand an employee (or two, or three) not thinking before typing away, but their spokesperson doing the same?!? The mind boggles!
FWIW, I’ve managed to get 2p flights from ‘em before (inc all taxes, fees, everything). Wasn’t a bug though.
A man seens a stewardess at a bar, and he thinks he is in with a chance – he can’t place the uniform so he sidles up with a drink in his hand and tries a few airline tag lines: “To Fly To Serve…..?” No response. “Something Special in the Air…? – she wheels around and says “What the f*ck is it that you want?. “Aha,” says the man “Ryanair”.
How not to do PR, start to finish! Ryanair obviously spend as much on giving staff interpersonal training as they do on making their aircraft comfortable.
Cork is 4 hours away from dublin and you were/are going to fly – A little more time exercising and a little less blogging maybe??
Ryan, have you considered opening a PR rep management firm? You ought to, considering the calm, patient, and mature tone you used to deal with the aggressive criticism you received. Kudos for taking the high road.
And you actually believe that since someone claims to be rayen air staff, they actually is? Ryanair-bashing ftw.
This confirms my suspicions that Ryanair back room staff really are as deeply unpleasant as their customer facing staff.
If that happened in Singapore, the airline staff would had got sacked!
RYANAIR,Ya bag of crap!
You are so mean!
I was meant to fly with you but Im not now,not if this is the way you deal with people!
You deserve all the nasty comments!
Who cares that Jason was wrong – it’s his blog, he isn’t charging anyone to read it – so for all of you who are pointing out that he was wrong – he already said so – so move on!
The response from Ryanair is beyond disgusting. Being low cost is not an excuse for insulting your customers and potential customers. HUGH mistake by Ryanair – I will be sure to send this out to everyone I know to make sure they never fly with Ryanair again.
They have every right to charge for every little thing they want, to increase baggage fees, charge for drinks/food/etc. – but that does not give you the right to be insulting and completely unprofessional.
Businesses like that do not deserve to survive.
I don’t believe I have ever responded to another’s blog post, but Ryanair disgusts me. I can’t believe not only the response by the staffers, but by it’s management. I know Europe is in some kind of pecking order roll-call, but it seems like this company would be in Belfast, at least. With the hatred they’ve shown toward Jason, I was astonished to learn it came from Dubliners.
I maybe a Yank, but my damn command of the Queen’s language runs circles around the employees of Ryanair.
what do people expect from ryanair?
everyone knows its reputation now. Everyone knows what to expect
and yet every time they do something like this, out come all the righteous indignant, roaring at the sky ‘how terrible is this’
grow up
treat like bus eirann, get on them, get off them, and forget about them
Right On RyanAir – I support you attacking this unemployed liar who maliciously posts innuendo and tries to point out your flaws. Damn it must be noice to be perfect like Jason.
Ryanair must be the worst airline I have ever flown with. From the moment you start their booking process to the moment you (eventually) arrive at your destination, it is nothing but extra cost, extra hassle but no extra help.
Jason;
I get it. You have pulled off a GOOD PUBLICITY STUNT!!!
Failed Hack Attempt + Misleading Claim = Publicity => $$$ for Jason.
My opinion, but I feel that this is absurd and misleading, simply self promotion. I wish you would change the title of this post.
By making the post title “free-ryan-air-free-flight-bug” You are NOT being truthful as there was nothing gained or gotten for free, except the publicity that you were after.
You are also attempting to get indexed in the Search Engines on “free ryanair flight” and “free flight” by putting “free” in twice.
And I quote you here:
“OK, now come on.. You have bad code and haven’t locked down your sessions, thats a bit different to me changing “some numbers” on my screen. ”
Can you explain why you mentioned “lock the sessions down”?
You are using the wrong term.
Session locking is only to allow a process to finish. It stops specific data in the server’s database from being accesed/updated by competing concurrent process. For example, a count of available seats: when one person books the last seat, while the seat is removed from inventory, a inventory count is locked and can not be made until the databse is updated, or else the last seat is taken twice.
They sessions WERE “locked down” because they did not let you complete the hack attempt. Obviously they did regenerate the session id “session_regenerate_id() in PHP”, and possibly also had hidden session related values in the forms to prevent Form Spoofing!
If you are a programmer, you know that variables like TICKET_COST must have default values for safety and hack protection. Obviously, $9,999.99 is a lot stupider than $0.00. Can you imaging the BAD PUBLICITY from someone saying that RyanAir charges $9,999.99 for a flight? $0.00 is more sensible and safer, and that is what was chosen. Would you choose otherwise?
If you are interested in how Sessions and Data can be protected from hacking, one PHP reference is Chapter 18 in O’REILLY’s PHP Cookbook with code on “Preventing Session Fixation”, “Protecting form Spoofing”, “Avoiding Cross Site Scripting”, “Eliminating SQL Injection” and “Filtering Input”, etc.
Good Luck!
To the commenters above: Please post in english, so other people than yourself can understand it. I am also from Scandivania, but I learned english
Jason, I admire your courage and sticking to your point. This article is going to hurt RyanAir a lot – you probably know it is on the CNN frontpage right now.
Traveling with RyanAir has always been a lousy experience – now we also see their real respect and attitude towards their customers.
Well done, Jason!
(By which I mean: well done in finding the bug and blogging about it; and then well done again in keeping your tone civil while Ryanair did not.)
To any Ryanair employees that may still be listening: this is now international news. I don’t read European press or blogs much, but this caught at my attention. No doubt other Americans have also noticed. So if you had hoped that you were only driving away British and Irish customers, think again.
As someone or other once said: people should keep their words soft and sweet, just in case they have to eat them later.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
Hey Jason! You think Ryanair is bad, come on over to Ohio USA and see their partner in crime…Delta Airlines. Kinda like the Joker and Riddler joining forces.
@ Ryanair people…
Congratulations. I have never used your airline and thanks to this blog, I never will.
I also happen to be a web developer and security architect and after a few scans of your web site, you had better start working like Santa’s little helpers is all I got to say.
Morons.
you can seriously damage your reputation/business by blogging. Blog with caution, honesty and professionalism.
Dear Ryanair,
I hope your pilots and engineers are less highly strung and more articulate than your developers, who seem like illiterate, aggressive weirdos to be honest. Please don’t let them out of the development bunker and feed them less caffeine.
great to see another fine example of how ryanair engage with their customers / you couldn’t make it up! anyway, guys, the lesson is: stay away from these suckers! I stopped booking ryanair flights years ago after getting fed up with hidden extra charges and their general attitude to customers…
Wow – in a time of deeping recession, every reputable company is doing their best to stay in business and retain customers. I have never and will never fly Ryanair. If this is the way they treat customers, how safe can their planes be? I hope the Ryanair employees who commented on your blog are fired. Shame on Ryanair management.
Jason – good on you!
If anyone didnt know what a bunch of c0cks ryanair are, they do now.
Jason, you really are an idiot. Most of the rest of you, too.
I live in Dubai so if I picked up on this exchange, imagine how many other people have read this.
I hope the 3 “infamous” Ryanair staffers ( assuming they work for Ryanair and not the competition…..?) are wondering right now whether they did their company any good with their responses…
great move Ryanair…now you made it to CNN!
Ok, surely Ryanair is doing this on purpose, in some twisted attempt to enter the Guiness Book of World Records for shockingly bad PR…
How DO they get away with this?
You’re stupid and fat. I saw your picture on CNN and I think I lost my libido for a month. If I’m ever too horny I’ll just think of you and it’ll be like taking a cold shower.
What absolutely shocks me is how Ryanair management seems to be standing behind and condoning these idiots who have commented on this blog. Just goes to prove what a load of immoral scumbags they all are.
Well this is currently flying its way around Twitter – – and maybe Ryanair management should take a moment to consider something called “public relations”. You know, this is an unique business concept where they are nice to the people who buy their tickets and ride on their planes, the same people who give them their profits and their annual bonuses. Slagging off those people is not the way to go if you want them to give you business. I for one will never fly on Ryanair again after seeing this blog post. I will personally fly EasyJet from now on.
Maybe you should think about that “Ryanair Staffer” before you mouth off again? I’m probably not the only one defecting to rivals now in disgust.
This is horrendous. I knew Ryanair had bad Customer Service, but the fact that xxxxxx’s lack of respect for the customer has trickled down to these low-lifes has amazed me. When did people get so ignorant? And there is something to say that they are spending their free time posting on a blog, defending their shitty excuse for an airline.
Wow, I hope Ryanair realizes the public backlash they just brought on! This just went global. Congrats in showing that if there is one airline that bloggers and non-bloggers alike will no longer be using, it’s Ryanair! Good job management, I bet you sure gave yourself a pat on the back for exposing yourself as having no shortage of douchebaggery on stock.
I bet you gave yourselves a nice raise for that difficult PR work, no? Maybe we should hunt for “Ryanair gives execs bonus for great PR work”.
So let me show you Ryanair, the way responses your response should have gone,note that this is satyrical:
“We at Ryanair would like to thank you, Jason Roe, for showing us a possible error. While we have found that it is in fact not an error, we appreciate taking the time to bring this issue to light. Thanks for choosing Ryanair”.
What are the chances of anonymous hackers going for Ryanair today? Considering the global coverage, I’d bet pretty highly.
You ARE an idiot. You couldn’t even tell the difference between a false postive and a real security flaw. Had you informed the company ONLY, your ‘find’ would have been appeciated and looked into. The fact that you bragged about the ‘exploit’ publicly is what makes you an even bigger moron.
Why would you publish what amounts to theft on your blog site? Think about what you’re doing next time.
Ryanair have certainly confirmed their reputation when it comes to customer relations, politeness and good manners here.
This has certainly made me prepared to lay out my money to fly with them…or not.
I commend Jason for his professional demeanour throughout this ugliness.
Perhaps RyanAir can learn from this experience and use it for training purposes.
Bravo Jason! You have a great career ahead.
Intelligence is not all about smarts, it is how you deal with new situations too.
I have to agree with ryanair. You really deserve to be called an idiot.
Funny thing is, Ryanair had a different bug on their booking system that I managed to take advantage of.
They had an offer where if you bought one flight you could then claim a free one. I’d flown Ryanair about 6 months prior, so I tried entering the booking code for that flight and it then allowed me to book a free one! Subsequently realised you could put any code in, spread the news round the office and at least 10 guys took advantage.
Consumer 1 Ryanair 0
Great post!
Just saw this :
You really need to get a life Jason Roe . You are thinking this stunt will help in your career designing web pages??? In the end you will starve (could stand to lose a few pounds) as people want straight talk not B.S.
I say good for you RyanAir staff.
Sometimes idiots such as yourself Jason, who seem to find pleasure in pointing out the various flaws in peoples work, need to be talked to as if you’re some kind of mediocre fuckwit.
I’m sure if you could do life again, you’d fix the problems? God is laughing at you and your petty life and spreading it to everyone around that you’re a flawed piece of crap. In that way, I’ve summed your life up as you’ve done the RyanAir website, congratulations to you.
In all honesty, as a freelancer I’d be more keen on finding business than worrying about others websites – and as I’m sure you’d be, the RyanAir webmaster would’ve loved to hear your response personally.
I’m a web designer/developer too, don’t give me shit about the life of a web guru, save that for people who don’t know anything and take my post at face value.
Dont pick it apart, analysing and commenting everything I say, just take it at face value, you fucked up – acted like an amateur, and your followers are backing you up with a hypocritical accusation, that is all.
Here’s what we’ve established from this incident.
1) Websites aren’t perfect and sometimes have errors.
2) You can’t actually book a “free” flight on Ryan Air.
3) The people at RyanAir are real sensitive folks.
4) People who discredit Bloggers as lunatics only to then seriously overreact to a posting by a blogger might themselves be lunatics.
5) The UK produces a superior cheddar cheese product to the US.
6) No, I will not sleep with you.
I’m an American and just read this for the first time on the homepage of CNN.COM here:
I find this incident really funny because it would NEVER happen in the US, and if it did, the employees would be fired immediately for speaking that way. That being said, I think it is pretty funny and a bit refreshing actually to see employees actually speak their mind instead of just humoring you.
I did used to live in the UK for a couple years and have flown RyanAir a number of times. Overall I have been incredibly pleased with the airline and I always recommend it to my American friends if they are headed to Europe. The employees I met were always polite and professional and most importantly, the flights were great and cheap. I could understand why the employees got pissed off.
You were busting their balls about something relatively insignificant yet glad to fly their airline for pennies on the dollar over the years. I always found their website pretty simple to navigate and functional. Who cares if it isn’t fancy? Have you looked at CraigsList lately? I doubt it’s been updated since 1994. Simplicity works.
damn jason, lose some weight. you look like a white jabba the hutt.
its people like you that make humanity look bad. you ain’t getting a pretty wife and a great position in society with your mediocrity. little geek.
Maybe you don’t get a free flight, but you certainly got some great press!
If only it was possible to avoid credit or debit charges when booking a Ryanair flight. We don’t charge our customers to use their credit cards but if we did it would certainly not be at the high level that Ryanair charge.
god I hate ryanair. All they are interested is mega profits…I hate everything about ryanair…go to BA
well, just say this on CNN. Wow. The issue is not about the bloggers post, it is Ryanair’s complete and utter disregard for their customers. If I ever had a choice and Ryanair was one of them, I would never fly with them. I hope their business tanks, and they can generate money back to the other airline companies that actually treat their customers as human beings. I have never seen such unprofessionalism from any company.
P.s. the comments about the blogger’s appearance just prove some of you people are idiots too. You must be Ryanair staff indisguise!
I know the system RyanAir is built on really well (NewSkies SkySales built by Navitaire). Trust me when I say this is harmless. Also take my word that this Jason Roe doesn’t know how to even scratch the surface of their underlying system.
I think a good analogy for this is going to a guest house or Bed and Breakfast and expecting 4 or 5 star service. You’re not paying for it. Ryan Air sell incredible value flights around Europe (even with the payment charges). The site will not win awards, but it works.
As a Brit, I find it endearing that Ryan Air Staff (not their PR department) take offence at someone nit picking at their site. It shows they have passion.
You could have told them directly and they might have thought well of ti and sent you a voucher or something. Instead you made it a public slating of a ‘flaw’ which is not really a flaw.
Give RyanAir some credit for what they do well and accept they will have to be a bit rough around the edges because they have to deal with people who expect something for nothing – or 5 star treatment – going back to my analogy.
wow great customer treatment – are you still flying with them?
So a SEO tip would be to piss off an airline?
I don’t know if the US airlines are as easy to piss off.
saw this story on wired.com you guys are big boys now!! haha
ps ryanair just simply sucks!
Well Jason really opened a can of worms when he tried to cheat Ryan Air out of a few pounds. It seems the bug really wasn’t a bug, but now that is beside the point.
Ryan Air exposed itself publicly with their unofficial and later official remarks. Their attitude generally boils down to this:
“We don’t have time to deal with customer issues or making our company better. We are only here to make money. If we could make money and leave the planes on the ground, even better. Screw the customer. We’re all about profit.”
That is the attitude displayed in this case, and also my actual experience on my first and last trip made on Ryan Air.
The Ryanair staff in this exchange appear to be the best and cheapest advertisement for Easyjet.
If nobody has notified you yet a Swedish newspaper called “Svenska Dagbladet” have picked up this story about rude Ryanair staff members embarrassing themselves.
See for yourself:
Just picked up on this. I booked return flights for 2 people last week for €0.04, including insurance. I had to buy the insurance as the site wouldn’t allow a card transaction for a minus figure – which was what was showing as the final total for the standalone flights. So it seemsyou CAN add passenger details etc after all.
Just waiting for the email to tell me the flights have been cancelled due to lack of interest.
Hey ho…
Nice to see so many poor developers bitching about someone looking at their work and doing what they should have done in the first place. What happened to pride in your work?
I suspect the RyanAir website uses it’s own flight/allocation data that is commonly supplied via XML for third-party bookings like those my ex-employer makes.
Therefore, it is safe to assume that you could only view the wrong prices due to a slight bug on the website (not redirecting to the start after a session times out?) and that at no point could you actually process a booking due to restrictions in place on the server or via the API itself. I’m pretty sure there are restrictions in place to ensure a seat could not be booked for free
Basically, you’ve made a mountain out of a molehill and it’s probably a dead simple fix for the RyanAir developers to make. Should it have happened in the first place? No. Is it a big deal? Only if you choose to make it so.
Cheers
Notice how all the Jason-negative comments are from anonymous persons. Or person.
Well done Jason. wow the response of those cunts at Ryanair
[...]Ryanair has insulted and mocked an Irish blogger who thought he’d discovered a flaw in the airline’s website, calling him an “idiot” and a “lunatic” and chastising him for his ”pathetic life.”[...]
you made wired jason, like i said last night you may want to reinforce your server
you got an article written about you in wired, world famous!
Greetings:
Made consumerist.com front page. Oh, and Ryan Air’s staff definitely missed the target on this one. I’ll be sure to have my employees not fly Ryan Air given that their customer service seems less than professional.
Wow, you´re so patient talkig to this ryan-guy… respect.
What a pack of BS Jason, you can repro stuff like this on most websites with an ordering process!
@Ryanair staff: +20 for telling what a noob Jason is!
I however disagree on WP, its a cool CMS
@Consumerist.com:
“RyanAir Employee Calls Blogger “Idiot,” And Their Spokesperson Publicly Agrees”
your question is: How do you call an idiot?
response: an idiot.
@Paul Healy:
Dude, I’ve noticed the same problem, on Firefox 3.0.6 reservation pages look like crap, all css styling is gone… On Firefox 3.1 beta2, when I choose a flight from homepage and click “book cheap flights” – that goddamn form just disappears without proceeding. What is interesting on Opera, which is far less popular browser than FF, it works.
@Jason Roe
May The Force be with You, buddy
BTW Ryanair sucks, that tune they play before the plane takes off always makes me want to tear my eyeballs out… But I didn’t realize that their staff are such disrespectful morons. Oh God, I got next flight booked in 2 weeks, can somebody hug me…
Well, I just read through the first posts. But it´s very pleasant for me to read, how “official” ryanair staff is contributing to this matter in that way. It´s just a simple example, that Ryanair is not that big fair player it likes to be…you should be happy, that someone reported a bug on your webpage. Don´t use Ryanair for your next flight!!!!!!!
Found this via Consumerist.com. RyanAir’s customer service has been highlighted and noted with disdain.
Why on earth would anyone WANT to fly with a bunch of scummy gobshites like Ryanair anyway, even if it was free?
Frankly, after experiencing this crowd’s ‘service’ in the past you’d have to PAY me to fly with them.
Classic Joke:
A man was sitting in the bar at Heathrow and noticed a really beautiful woman sitting next to him.
He thought to himself. ‘Wow, she’s so gorgeous she must be an air hostess. I wonder which airline she works for.’
Hoping to find out, he leaned towards her and uttered the Delta Airline slogan. ‘Love to fly and it shows?’ She gave him a blank, confused stare and he thought to himself. ‘Well, she obviously doesn’t work for Delta.’
A moment later, another slogan popped into his head. So he leaned towards her again and said, ‘Something special in the air?’ She gave him the same confused look.
He mentally scratched Singapore Airlines off his list. He thought ‘Perhaps she works for Thai Airways…’ and said ‘Smooth as silk?’
This time, the woman turned on him and said, ‘What the f**k do you want?’
The man smiled, slumped back in his chair and said. ‘Ahhhhh, Ryanair!’
You’ve had Ryanair help you out-Ryanair Ryanair, and you didn’t even have to make a silly face for the camera or an ‘outrageous’ remark. Nice one!
I will be delighted to put an edited down version of this excellent post in my next book about Ryanair …. or as I call them … Ruinair … if thats ok with everyone?
It’s been amazing to read the comments from Ryanair’s staff. From my experience, the behavior of the staff depends upon the ones at the top of the organization…
This whole affair shows how ridiculous and petty Ryanair are.
They put this off on their employees free time etc, but their PR man on Newstalk was just as snide and arrogant…….
jason!
don’t waste your time replying to these idiots.
Ryanair is the worst ever on the planet. I flew twice with them and will never do it again in my whole life. their flights are late as hell, service is bad and staff uneducated.
leave them alone.
I have just listened to newstalk and on it there was the communications manager and the originator of this blog.
well the comms manager is definitely from the the Ryan Air school of communications, as he displayed as much ignorance, arrogance, and insulting talk as his boss.
Ryan air, and staff go away and learn some manners and when you actually learn how to speak cordially to people come back and apologise to not only the blogger here, but the many other bloggers you managed to call idiots.
And the arrogance you actually did show here is no different to that you show your customers, that is of course when you can be found to actually complain too, it’s amazing how you seem to come out of the woodwork when there are a few comments left on a blog.
Well done Blogger you even managed to get the communications manager to come live on radio, now maybe they might get back to dealing with the real issues their crap airline.
Ryanair contract an external comapany to handle development of their web reservations applications.
Oh dear. Massive PR fail.
@ryanair staff – please read it may be very old, but clearly you guys don’t have a clue how to deal with people in an online world.
You should be sacked.
Well, it is clear why I never fly with Ryanair isn’t it?
The news reached Italy. I admire your coolness, Jason, in answering the Ryanair staff member!
I read about this on “Corriere della sera”, the most important newspaper in Italy, and I couldn’t believe it. How can a company be so arrogant?!?
Carry on Jason, all idiots and liars in Italy are with you!
It is my policy not to waste time and money dealing with airlines that gratuitously insult me.
@mrgoat loved this one ..
And lets hope ryanair do too before it’s too late, as they are on the slippery slope already ..
We have better things to do than worry about whether you’ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?
Ryanair are just rude cowboys who treat customers and staff like crap. This is not gonna last long as dissent is ever growing and I won’t be flying with them anymore as each flight I took was a slow and painful descent into the abysses of contempt and plane fuckup.
Okay, being a developer myself I can understand the frustration of the Ryanair programmer getting upset over this relatively minor issue, and it being blogged about. This developer probably got pointed to this blog by their supervisor with a slap and a high priority defect to fix because of the fear that “free” flights were being given. Then this developer probably found there was not an issue after all. If this happened to you, you would probably be peeved too!
The failure, of course, is Ryanair not officially apologizing for the comments by their programmer but instead continued with a very unprofessional string of insults in their oficial response.
Who is the winner? Not Jason, he didn’t actually do anything smart unfortunately. Ryanair? Well I had never heard of them before today and seeing this on CNN. Who knows, maybe I will consider them in the future… Or Not. Fact is I now know about them. Think about it.
This is a pretty clear view of ryanair’s great customer experiance policy.. the following blog provides an interesting view on this!
J
Well, now that I think about it, Jason just got pwned even though he thought he was going to cheat the system out of 10 dollars. Serves him right for trying to be a trickster. I just booked 18 Ryanair flights for the next year and I will continue to book more.
WordPress rocks – the fact that Ryanair would say it’s ‘crappy’ speaks volumes of their business model, in fact it reflects it. No wonder Aer Lingus keep rejecting their offers!
Hey Jason, and surely hope you’re unscaithed by the various posts above. Just had a read of a article that lead me here. Am shockingly amazed at:
> absolute idiocy of Ryanair staff and management. When oh when will they learn?
> absolute amazing power of blogging. Isn’t it amazing that one itty-bitty observation has led to global distribution and such overwhelming contempt for the airline in question? When oh when will they learn?
> absolute amazing craziness of some – I can’t believe the nastiness of some of the posts above. I must be as naive as they are. Don’t take ‘em onboard, Jason – When oh when will they learn?
And by the way, and to riposte a note to 200+ POSTS. REALLY? above… the US actually does make a pretty good cheddar cheese. However, you should try a Swiss from Wisconsin. Yummy!
My problem with Ryan Air is the website is so broken and coded so horribly that I can never finish a transaction. It says it times out, times out in 30 seconds or less? Please, Ryan Air could fire these jokers posing as web developers and hire someone who knows something more than the BR tag.
Wait… aren’t “fees for using credit cards” illegal? Meaning, if you’re charging folks extra for using their Visas, and they report you, Visa can impose a penalty?
You people are all idiots. I moved from Ireland to the states a few years ago and do you know what i miss most? Ryanair. If I want to fly 300 miles a ticket could cost $400 sometimes and almost every flight requires a connection. Eg, you can see a city called Rochester from the top of the CN tower in Toronto. Its just across the lake but the flight there costs over $600.
Before Ryanair Airlingus used to charge 700 to fly to copenhagen. Anyone remember that? How about 450 to fly to London.
Ryanair is the greatest thing that ever happened to Ireland and I’m ashamed of my country folk when i read all the bullshit like these comments (not the original post, im talking about the knockers). Its a pity that Irish people cant be proud of the company but i suppose they just prefer to bitch.
Since when is WordPress a “crappy cms”?!
RyanAir – Pot Kettle Black
I felw Ryanair and all I got was a fuck up the arse by a Leprechaun
Come rovinare la propria immagine online in pochi giorni: Ryanair ci è riuscita dando degli «idioti» ai blogger di tutto il mondo. Non si tratta di un malinteso e la compagnia aerea low cost non sembra avere la minima intenzione di fare marcia indietro.
I for one am shocked and saddened at the response of what should be a customer orientated organisation. As a frequent business traveller, and user of tecnology for business development purposes I am amazed at ryan airs lack of understanding of their target audience!!! The techies more so than senior management… But they too should understand the value of e-communication and the blogosphere. All over a minor and misplaced blog. Let it ride. Simply put. Mangement of ryanair. I’m dissapointed and will go out of my way to try and not to use your service again.
ahahahahaha good work guys!
and now the tickets at cost 0,
I recommend it for Easter!
Beh che dire,
che geni dii sviluppatori che si trovano in ryanair hihihihihihihi
Se non avete i soldi per fare gli sviluppi o siete in 2 a fare un lavoro per 100 statevene a casa…
To Ryanair Staff #1 – #1000: The quality of your comments shows what fucktards you guys are. You could have taken it like a man and fix the fucking bug. Instead, you’ve made it into Wired. Hahaha, pathetic loosers…
Fly easyjet!
Ryan Air=low.cost=low customer satisfaction
#142 @Ryan Fair “an idiot (irish, what do you expect?)”
- Racist Scumbag
Hey!
Well done you got on to Six-1. Not that Mick O’Leary will give a toss.
To those that say it’s not a bug, dictionary.reference.com defines a bug as:
1 bug
1 noun, verb, bugged, bug⋅ging.
–noun
…
4. Informal. a defect or imperfection, as in a mechanical device, computer program, or plan; glitch: The test flight discovered the bugs in the new plane.
Since the price fields on the right do not reflect the prices of the flights chosen on the left, and the right hand prices are the prices payable (i.e. you’ve chosen a flight costing 9.99 and you have to pay… 0.00?!) this is plainly & obviously a bug. Says the 3rd line support guy with 12 years’ experience in the biz. Defensiveness & aggression are unacceptable when all Jason has done is to try & highlight this amusing if minor bug for Ryanair to fix. If Ryanair’s support staff are committed to ironing out the flaws in their software they should be thanking him for his help & assuring him that they either are in the process of eliminating that bug, or that it’s on their list of things to do, not trying to defend it as it it’s a feature. They should be striving for robustness & elegance in their software.
Thanks to the Ryanair staff for driving so much traffic to Jason’s blog.
Nice one.
Friggin genius.
-Rd
get a life mate!!!!
I expect RyanAir to apologize. Otherwise, they can forget my business from now on. Apparently, they are the true idiots.
Good job Ryanair! Not only did you “give the lunatic blogger what he deserves”, but also lost over a thousand potential customers by now. Congratulations!!!
Ryan Air aside, Jason your blog really is rather shit. Are you honestly expecting an award for this? Seriously?
Youtube video of jason on RTE news earlier today
-Jaggeh
Any publicity is good publicity for Ryanair, that’s why we had that genius Stephen McNamara on RTE news this evening with a big smiley head on him.
Then again, it’s good for Joe too!
I support you Jason! Ryanair staff was very very unpolite.. i’m happy that this bad advertisement is doing the world tour, as also italian newspapers reported it (i came here following links from them).
The truth is that you find a small problem in their site and they are not able to admit it!
Good job,
Mario
ryanair sucks
The three angry ryanair bloggers reach the italian press too.
Jason Roe!. You deserve a knighthood. good on you pal. R-Air are contemptible. their day will come. I myself actually have an apology letter from them believe it or not. going back a while. I still have it. It took THREE months to get but I got it. I am not saying how I got it but I deserved it. I’m thinking of selling it on eBay. I don’t use them anymore. When one steps onto an aircraft of ANY other airline..you can tell the difference. Even the smell is different. I can remember clearly visiting the lavatory BEFORE the Seat-belt sign came on. And in “mid” urination, a male cabin crew attendant opened the door with that “special” key they have to open doors in the cabin…and all that i could think of saying to him (the f***ing jerk) ..as I turned around and faced him and still exposed……was..QUOTE: “Do you wanst to to continue right now”?…That’s the “R” word airline for you. The thing about them that unnerves me more than anything else is that I have a suspicion that the staff are trained…almost like doing an EST mind control course or something similar …to utterly refute ANYTHING that ANY paying passenger has to say….regardslee of whether they are right or not….particular instance: Cabin crew member…from somwhere that shall for now remain nameless….tells a passenger to put away his newspaper for takeoff….I interrupted him and told him that the gentleman did NOT have to do so…he waved his finger at me and told me I was not only wrong but told me not to interfere….I kept at himj….he left…(pillock)….and returned 5 minutes later to apologise….to the man with the paper…..but not me…Maybe I should apply for a job?…no?…I know the rules better than most of the cabin crew staff….Anyway…Let’s keep our fingers…and whatever else we have….WELL crossed…that R doesn’t get it’s hands on the superior (ok….more expensive…sometimes)…airline….blah blah…
Just saw you on the news. The Ryanair guy that spoke on the news wasn’t even apologetic about it. Do they have any clue about public relations? What a shower of muppets.
Ah Jason your my hero..
“jason!
you’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is!
you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!”
Coming from a guy that probably uses something based on asp.net and SQL server.
Its people like this that just piss me off!
Maybe he’s right – maybe PHP and MySQL are useless.
And as for valid markup? — sure who needs that?
Jason: Nice blog – keep up the good work.
Shane
If you fly with them you’ll realize every RyanAir employee is rude. I don’t know why. They’re probably low paid and have to work under pressure but they’re really bad. RyanAir is one of the worst companies in the world. I’ve flown with them a lot in this last year. Their flight are always delayed. Last time they canceled my flight because of the snow in London and they didn’t even worry about the fact I had to fly back to my country. I tried to change the flight but I found out I had to wait 3 days more. I chose EasyJet which is much better.
Fight the powar!!!, Looks like Mick has also thought his little soldiers the same manners he has. I’ve stumbled this page as well.
This is the reason why I never fly with ryanair…you can never trust what is going to happen!
Just seen you on News. Ryanair should be apologising to you and should actually be thanking you for highlighting bugs. No gratuite and terrible manners if nothing else….
Jason it’s me Elena from Locks…. remember?
This is great!!!!!
Alan wrote me and I saw you on the news from Italy,
fuck them, you are brilliant!
CNN? Well done!
Score!
A Kiss!
E
The Ryanair staff who replied to this person’s rational observation is appalling.
Ryanair are famous for not allowing their staff join unions as well as for paying staff peanuts. Oh well, the Ryanair staff here certainly prove that if you pay peanuts you really do get monkeys.
What an aggressive bunch they have shown themselves to be. I will NEVER fly with such a crummy airine again. These people are my fellow Irish citizens – what an embarrassment!!!!!
Well done for Jason Roe for replying to their aggression in such a cool and polite manner.
Hahaha! Nice one!
Jeese the Ryanair employees just can’t take it!
Awful!
See this is why easyJet is the better airline, down with Ryanair I say!
Well lads you are all famous now…on the RTE news!!! hehehe
You go Jason! Well done and I think that if there is a real ignorant and lunatic here is Ryanair and its stuff. I never used and will never use this airline….
Guys, if you have time, take a look at this documentary about the real face of Ryanair:
well done Jason, never mind those stupid Ryanair staff….. what do you expect from them !! usual impolite response.
keep rock’in the free world of blog
I think the R’air attitude towards their customers is appalling.
Just two weeks ago, an American friend of mine was attempting to book a flight from Ireland to the UK. He was unfamilar with the site, and having a routine question, called customer service for some assistence.
Initially, the rep he was put in touch with was abrupt, bordering on rude.
When she misinterpretated his question and he attempted to elaborate, she very eloquently hung up the phone on him.
He was surprised, I was sadly not. I am embarrassed and ashamed of this attitude. The ensuing impression it has left on my friend with regards to Irish custom saddens me .
Jason as a Ryanair shareholder I am totally appalled at what has happened. The corporate culture of Ryanair is more and more beginning to reek of the old Ireland that was in thrall of easy money, crudeness and a lack of respect for ordinary people. I would appeal to you to request a full and unreserved apology from the Head of Communications.
Epic post!
Too bad Jason will never be able to fly Ryanair again.
Well done Jason for remaining calm and professional while dealing with the lunatic children of corporate Ireland. Who let them near a keyboard for God’s sake?
I know of Jason’s professional background, skills and successes and attacks on a man’s personal reputation should be punished in the wallet. I never recall, in all of my years working online (since 1999), a more naive outburst from the static IPs of a quoted multinational.
Posts 199 & 200 smell of Ryanair buddies also and are congruent with the numerous personal and uncalled-for attacks on Jason rather than his stated position.
The staff responses are typical of the arrogance that now flows through Ireland. Sack a few of your staff Ryanair. The cuts are here, Its time to only retain the best and let the lunatics out to anger management and ‘good code 101′ classes for a few years until things bounce back.
Dear Jason,
You may enjoy my post
They may be “idiot bloggers,” Ryanair, but they’re still your customers:
On Thursday, in response to an apparent bug on their site discovered and posted by techie blogger Jason Roe, a customer service rep for Ireland’s airline Ryanair spewed off a long string of nasty comments (read them here for yourself) such as…
I really think Ryanair spat out the dummy and can come to us for some Customer Service training. We will even provide it trully for free i.e. no handling charge for their ignorance
WOW
Ryanair staff can come on here and publicly abuse you, and when communication and HR staff from Ryanair respond publicly to it again your personally abused,,
To think the hands of our National airline Aer Lingus could be in the hands of theese helper monkeys,, well i think we should set up a website to let the irish public have an opinion of the faith of our national airline, Then maybe Mr O’Leary will pat attention and put these ignorent staff on the dole line, lets see how far there manners will get them.
wow ryanair staff have made fools of themselves, ive seen this mentioned on cnn and rte news, how stupid they look!!!!!!!! theres more to life than argueing for multinational companies over the web
Jason,
Well done. At the end of the day, who is right and who is wrong dose not even come into it – The response that you got from the Ryanair staff member was absolutely disgraceful. I had the misfortune of working for them years ago in HQ… Believe me they are all idiots that work in Customer Service. They don’t care about the passengers or other staff members for that matter. Most of them have brown around their mouth from licking MOL ass!!!! Don’t get me wrong but I really admire MOL for what he has done for the Irish economy, and also the way he expresses himself at times…quite funny!!! I know from experience that MOL will be appalled at theses posts from a staff member. I have always found MOL to be very honourable to genuine complaints or problems that may arise from time to time. He dose like to have involvement as to what goes on in Customer Service, believe it or not!! He always had a saying “Good publicity, bad publicity, it’s all publicity” To be honest, this has highlighted Ryanair in a very bad way, I believe. I think if MOL still has the balls, that he might come out and make a statement himself since this topic has now been on CNN, Italian papers and RTE. I hope this person gets the bullet to be honest. If memory serves me correctly, I believe that the Customer Service Executives have to have a BA…lol lol lol, or dose that mean bad attitude!!! Sure senior members of the Customer Service team don’t even know how to use Excel!!!! If they really want to cut costs, then get rid of this contaminating person and put faith back into Ryanair’s Customers.
I love that Ryanair has called you out on this. I don’t think they look bad at all. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when idiots get called idiots. And I especially love it when a corporation surprises you by throwing PR out the window. This is great publicity.
Nice work Ryanair
Those answer were so rude, unbeliaveble.
i was a fan of ryanair but over the years flying with them became so annoying.
Charges for the bags, incredible charges for musical instruments, stupid automatic insurance in the website, during the flight every 5 minutes some flight attendant try to sell you something, a lottery ticket, a but ride, WHATEVER….i am on plane non in a mall!!! And something that i never understood, what costs Ryanair to assign seats? It feels so stupid to fight over seats, come on, it’s easy, a computer program could do that job….and now, the idea of the cell phones. So useless and annoying.
So, i always try to fly with other companies…feels more human.
Ryanair, critics are suppose to make you better…we used to like you a lot.
Hey. Just wanted you to know (in case you don’t) that your blog has been hotlinked from one of Swedens biggest newspapers (Svenska Dagbladet). I guess Ryanair will be getting a share of bad publicity on this one =).
Great work!
I would never travel with Ryan Air nor would I recommend them to anyone else and this is another blatant example of why. Customer relations are not existent in this budget airline. Many of us are hoping that the credit crunch will take them down.
Jason, are you sure that this really is the ryainair staff? Otherwise, delete those f’cking comments – whoever posted it – could get you in deep trouble!
the reply is only one: boycot! (if you can)
Wow – Ryanair has not yet learned external communications and have no policy how to handle the blog sphere. My advice to Ryanair is; shut up, call your communications officer or consultant if you have any. Then form a company policy that prohibits staff from commenting and make a fool out of themselves by answering and being rude to people who point out faults bugs and defects. Got it? Get it? Good!
This is going to cost Ryainair … and I mean money!!
Jason – this is excellent work. I read about this story from a magazine publisher here in Thailand! It demonstrates the attitude of Ryanair and it’s staff towards their customers. They should have thanked you for discovering the glitch and got to work on it. I hope this turn into a public relations disaster for them. Their staff also need to learn that they represent their company when they post defamatory remarks on somebody’s personal website.
Hello Jason,
))
I thank u very much for info about attitude of Ryanair to their own (but for how long) clients.
I am looking to book flight for me and friends (9 tickets) to fly to Spain from UK and I was considering to choose Ryanair that I never flight before.
Now I canceled this option. I will spend may be something more but I will not feed this kind of guys.
Have a nice weekend and enjoy the advertising and visibility they gave to your skills … and they did it for free … If they understand it most probably there will be a series of heart attacks in the upper management chairs
If this guy is really a ryan air representative than the Company will get into troubles…no doubt about that…I was brought here from the main web page of the most important italian newspapaper “Corriere della Sera”…that means that not only a few bloggers have read about this useless lack of respect.
in response to ben
The ip address was traced back to Ryanair HQ and the Ryanair PR man confirmed it was ryan air staffers who posted.
read in Italy, in the most spread italian daily newspaper! Ryanair’s reputation is falling down…
did anyone here the spokes person for ryanair on the news? he said that ‘jason needs to toughen up if he’s going to get in with the big boys’ – sounds like a captain of tony soprano’s gang.
ryanair treat their staff like dirt – which ooses out to the public. so i’d always pay a little more and use another airline hoping that the staff get a better deal and everyone is better off for it.
Jason…good on you!! I do hope those Ryan Air staffers got the boot and add me to the long list of people who will no longer be requireing the sevices of RyanAir.
Good luck with your programming career!
FU Ryan Air!
“The Customer Is Always Right”, learn this!
Free publicitiy for RyanAir. Nice one!
Rayanair is well known for viral marketing, and that is what those comments are for. They got free worldwide advertisement.
In a world where more and more companies are realising the power of the Internet on their brand, and the absolute necessity of engaging in constructive dialogue with potential and actual customers, I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry at the utter idiocy of Ryanair.
In one fell swoop, they’ve managed to take a run-of-the-mill identification of a bug in their system, shown to the world through a well-written blog (as more and more similar findings are), and rather than posting “Thanks, we’re working on this now”, they’ve made themselves look like utter idiots to the entire world.
Good work, guys. It might also be worth investigating if your company would invest in some grammer courses.
Money talks, and that’s why I’ve just booked my Easter trip home with Aer Lingus. I made the decision to avoid Ryanair precisely because of Ryanair’s bad attitude. I really have had enough of their arrogance! Could this be Ryanair’s “Prawn Sandwich” moment? Remember how Gerald Ratner destroyed his jewellery business with one remark?
Dear Ryan Air staff, now read carefully this link – – and write 1000 times:
“I’ve just lost a lot of potential clients because of my ignorance.”
While i don’t really think what ryan did is anything amazing or whatever, posters #183 and #200 should cop on, there’s no need for that sort of personal negativity. And as for that smiley faced eejit from Ryanair that appeared on the news yesterday evening to comment on the matter? He basically threatened Jason, and condoned what was said on here by ALLEGED ryanair staffers. I was trying to see things from his point of view, but I couldn’t stick my head that far up my arse!
And on MSN this morning I read that they (ryanair) are looking at charging people a pound or euro or whatever to use the loo on their flights? I’d let my kdneys pop like Grandpa Simpson before I’d use the loo so….I thought the online check-in and drop your luggage at a drop-off “point” was going to be a fiasco!!!! Just wait (and cross your legs) for the next one!
One more thing! People slag him off about “touting for business” and “looking for publicity”? Eh, he as much as says he’s looking for stuff to do at the very top of his page people (such klipes, they really are)
Well, at 0$, they certainly can’t reduce costs much further at least
Maybe Ryanair could now try fixing their broken website. Session hijacking is evil and all, but a website that isn’t safe to access from multiple tabs or browser windows just doesn’t fit into this millenium.
Jason your a twat but thanks for the free ads in all the major news outlets.
In airline travel, the saying “you get what you pay for” is so apt.
Want a cheap flight? Well be prepared to get the worst service possible!
Want good service? Well be prepared to pay for it!
I for one will not be boycotting Ryanair because some members of its staff were extremely rude. I’ve gotten use to this behaviour from the huge number of stories in the press/on the internet and my own experiences over the last few years.
As long as they keep giving cheap flights I’ll keep flying with them.
Minchia!!! RyanAir ce sta futtendo ‘o lavuro!!
Gli avvertimenti mafiosi (quelli veri) li dobbiamo fare solo noi, veri mafiosi!!!
Mi spiegai?!?
RyanAir hai chiuso con noi! Nessun picciotto volerà mai più sui tuoi merdosi aerei! …. Anche perchè noi di soldi ne abbiamo a tonnellate e dei prezzi stracciati non sappiamo che farcene!!
Questo è un avvertimento…
Salutiamo
(I’m sorry for the italian. I let RyanAir Staff translate this mafious message!)
ryan staff…
shame on you!
thath’s not the way to deal w your costumers
SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
no other words… joe… keep going ,-)
@349 & 350:
i think it’s a false perception that any publicity is good publicity. ryanair have proven in the past at how bad they treat their staff and customers, so if people are willing to give them money it shows how belligerent they are. ireland has proven that me fein is the new way to live. this time next year when the country is bankrupt, we’ll see how far it gets us.
The benefits of paying for using the crapper:
You get to listen to trolly song
Mr. Superfly wipes your bottom
OH MY GOD!!!!!
I’m just in shock. Its bad enough that the Ryanair staff members were so disgusting and rude. My first thought was that we cant really blame Ryanair fro a couple of idot staff members. But then the spokesperson for Ryanair more or less backs them up….
“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.
“It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.
“Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel”.
‘jason needs to toughen up if he’s going to get in with the big boys’
Not even an apology… I am just in shock. To the comment above about how we should be greatful and proud of Ryanair for driving down prices. Thats fair enough but customers deserve to be treated with respect. Its not that hard!!! Fair play to Jason for remaining calm……
Shame on Ryanair and if this was a way of silencing the bloggers and hoping for mainstream media support then i would say the strategy has backfired. For sure they should be grateful to you instead of what they did.
And now Ryanair announces that it may introduce a £1 charge to go to the loo – by fitting coin slots to the toilet of its aircrafts… just adding to the bad reputation, and Ryanair should learn that timing of announcements is key!!
Love the notion that Ryanair are actually cheaper than other airlines. Once all the surcharges are added up (unless you’ll be bringing your own fuel of course) there are usually several other airlines flying better routes (i.e. to where you want to go, not somewhere near it) for less money.
never fly ryanair! Now charging 1 euro for for the privilege of using a toilet…
I was able to reproduce the same behaviour in Firefox 3. It let me proceed to the personal details page and I was almost about to purchase. It almost seems as if it was true.
Then again this is such an amateur mistake, the developer should have known better to keep the booking variable details separated in the session. Have a guess how well the details are validated !? There must be obvious holes in it.
I’m sick of Ryanair. It’s time that they took it in the pocket for this kind of senseless abusiveness. I had already vowed never fly with them again due to the appalling experience that I found it to be. I hope others follow suit. Thankfully they didn’t get Aer Lingus.
Ha ha ha..
All those morons in ryanair have managed to do is draw massive press and public attention to your blog, and their stupidity!! Whilst in the process confirming that they have the intelligence of fleas… just brilliant..
gotta love it
Congratulations to Ryanair staff.
They do even provide a very low price service, but so is the skill level of their employees , including Customer Care and staff on the flights.
Running low budget does not mean high level of service!!!!
Running low budget means that you do everything at the lower amount of standard to get you by.
It might a selling point – but for how long ?
Jason – you were dead right to publish any information you wanted – after all it is your blog and in most part of the world we are in a democracy.
This time around – DO NOT SHUT UP! You are not the idiot.
After all we know that RyanAir is just a cheaper prostitute than the others!
Brilliant! I love this…
Such entertainment….. (gets more popcorn and settles in for some more quality Ryanair bashing)
Interesting to note that Ryan Air staffers – AND management – are such idiots, as they’ve proved here and elsewhere – with their completely destructive response to you.
Anybody still dare to fly with them?
Brilliant stuff. If it had been part of a movie, no one would have found it credible. Truly beyond imagination…well done blogger, for staying calm and reasonable.
Interesting to see the ‘professional’ response from the Ryanair staffer … kind of mirrors the major incidents which Ryanair have had which have nearly resulted in the loss of the aircraft. I’ll exclude the recent Rome over run, which resulted in the aircraft being written off, as they hit birds and you can’t blame them for that. But there were significant safety scares in Sweden, 2 in Ireland, and another one in Rome, all since 2005. Plus another runway over run in France.
O’Leary’s solution is to threaten the pilots with the sack, instead of trying to find out what it is about the airline which is resulting in these types of incident which could one day result in a disaster.
He’s got his priorities right it seems. Screw the public out of every Euro he can, lambast and ridicule everyone not in Ryanair, and generally act in an oboxious and condescending manner. Let’s see if his attitude changes when he suffers his first fatalities. With the track record of close shaves, it might not be far away
What a stange company. They are doing everything to scare the customers away, i am a frequent flyer but no way in hell i’m gonna fly with that company again. And they dont even have a e-mail adress..
Now your story (and blog) has been hotlinked from one of Denmarks biggest newspapers as well (Politiken.dk).
More bad publicity (stupid Ryanair)….
Brilliant stuff!
Well, Ryanair may have shown that it can indeed squat to the lowest of low and charge one to use the toilet on their planes. Check out the article from the Daily Telegraph…
How will they hide that in the ticketing site?
they really are a fecking bunch of piss artists more so now hat they want to charge to piss as well…..
Probably wait till ye sit to see that ye have to pay as well for loo roll….
they are gone beyone a bloody joke!!!
well donr for the blog and keep up all the good work…any bad publicity they can get feels greattttttttttttttttttttttt
I think that the majority here of these replies are actually out of the context of what the blog post was about.
A website should be FREE of any bugs in order to provide a friendly user interface and to avoid confusion.A friendly user interface will encourage people also to return to the site, no matter what the nature of the site’s business is.
The development team that compiled the ryanair site should be delighted that ‘another bug’ is found and should -instead of hurling abuse- appreciate this blog comment.
I watched with interest mr Macnamara’s comment on the rte news and could not believe that he not even apologised for the rude behavior of some of his staff.But than again..whats new..
As far the title of the blog post is concerend, it is somewhat misleading as Jason actually did not managed to book a free flight. But hey, THAT is SEO.
It is also said in some of the comments that this means $$$$ for jason as his blog probaly has seen in increase in hits, but i wonder how he could receive $$$ because of that as i do not see any (google) ads or ads of similar publishing companies.
Also i am pretty sure that -if ryanair would be easier to contact and if they can be contacted at all- that jason would have had forwarded his find to the HQ.
So ryanair only have them selves to blame for the adverse and negative publicity this creates for them.
I can see that this incident made it to the online version of a major danish newspaper
It contains a link to this blog. It is quite funny to read about, but i would recommend Ryanair to sack the top management staff there believes it is good publicity to call customers idiots when they identify a software bug in the customer software
sorry the company software and not customer software
LOL
Nice topic… I didnt have time to read all the responses. I am just a little surprised that child employment is allowed in Ireland. But on the other hand…. Ryaniar is lowbudget and they have probably reduced all expences on nice responses, adult behaviour, decency etc. Don’t spend your valuable time on them.
NEWS FLASH:
Why is EVERYONE here (including WOMMA, which just pointed me to this blog post) assuming that the comments left here by “Ryanair” are actually, gasp!, from Ryanair? The comment box I am currently typing in allows me to leave a comment as WHOMEVER I WANT TO BE… or anonymously if I so choose. Could it be that the “Ryanair staffer” is just some rabblerouser trying to get a rise out of everyone (which they’ve accomplished).
And if you don’t buy that theory then also consider not taking some dipwad webmaster’s response as the official one from the airline. The above exchange with a “Ryanair staffer” is likely just from some loser in the website engineering department — who has that job specifically because he has no social skills. Someone in Ryanair’s HR department needs to make sure he can’t engage with the public on the company’s behalf, now that the PR department is going to have to clean up his mess.
For anyone who missed it .. Ryanair confirmed that the comments did come from a staff member.
Raynair, hace you ever heard about… “Word of mouth”? If you would have just answered: “Yeah dude, there is a bug, thanks”, you would not have arrived to my e-mail on the WOMM newsletter. But your stupid and agressive responses made me relate the concept of fucked up people with the raynair brand. Raynair -> no thanks.
I have never heard of this company, but know that I have read all of the bad press about them, I will not be using their services. There seems to be a backlash with us bloggers because businesses would rather attack us then work on the original problems. I have had a few blog posts about this recently, and I think it is sad that they are still stuck in their old ways of thinking.
Great response back!
To tell you the truth, these may be the friendliest Ryanair employees I’ve ever encountered.
In Ryanair’s infinite brililance…news today that they will be charging passengers to use the toilet on flights. They get you both ways now.
This is so much fun. Read about this in a Danish newspaper and had to check it out:-) This is like a plane company who mainly sell tickets online, but somehow tries to ignore the effect of the internet…. And customer service, and customer relationship. hehe. Ryanair, Shity travel, but at least you give us entertainment
Brilliant work Jason
O’Learys best mate is Martin Mcguinness what does that tell you about the quality of of the bosses at ryanair. ryanair and flybe are cut from the same cloth robbing hoodlums in other words business at its ugliest.
Yes, you are indeed an idiot. Glad that Ryanair’s official response reflected same.
Rgds
Thomas (non-Ryanair employee, Denmark)
Oleary is a asshole; hope he gets the shits while travelling on his own airline and has no change. Shit your pants you asshole!!
Thr only reason i belive this story instead of assuming it is some kind of candid camera is the fact that Ryanair confirmed it to CNN and that the story is being picked up across the globe by newsstories.
I did not belive there would exist companies there would try to reduce the public’s confidence in the company online transaction system.
Top management is after all sending a clear statemennt regarding the degree of commitment to ensure it is safe to use the company services. “This is the way we will treat you if you identify an error in the online payment / transaction systems”
They write about this blogwar in Sweden
In short,- Ryanair calls blogers idiots, and that Ryanair craschlanded in thier PR.
Good Luck Jason
Peter in Sweden
well this story starts to become “world wide” *LOL*
now they also write in Danish news how R’air responded to this blog
could look like an person or two inside R’Air are getting spanked now
cheers from Denmark
link to DK news:
This was the best thing I have ever read on the internet,
I’m never Floiying Roiyanair air again.
Wake guys. Thats how customer service works. Keep it hush hush if you found a bug cause they never accept it and may not fix it.
Recession is coming for you, lads. Improvise or extinct.
I think someone at Ryan Air needs to go out buy a book on “Online Reputation mangement” ;p)
What do you want from a company that asks money to let you piss in flight!!
Haha you got them good, what a reaction, it’s obvious Ryanair just want to be in the press, with good news or bad!!
There are loads of bugs on the ryanair website…one can’t open and operate various searches on firefox or IE at the same time – therefore if I wish to book a series of flights I cannot do so easily…this site is really customer un-friendly..i’m surprised Michael hasn’t tested it himself…
This is classic Micheal O’Leary – I’m willing to bet that the only Ryanair staffer to post here was him! Look at the amount of coverage this has generated – and it hasn’t done them any harm in my opinion, well no more than any of their other PR.
Apologies if somebody else already suggested this, I didn’t fancy reading through 420 comments!
Thanks for sharing your find Jason, its a pity it doesn’t work but it does make for a nice screenshot!
I agree completely with those who have criticised the Ryanair reaction – it was childish at best but to those who criticise the airline as a whole and vow to never fly them; why did you choose to view a blog that shows you how to fly with them for free?
You guys do exactly what Ryanair wants to: Their Marketing Strategy is some sort of “Any publicity is good publicity” and “Any news is good news” and Guerillia Marketing… This Blog caught attention in the UK, Germany, Italy and many other countries… free news for Ryanair! Did anyone of you ever book Ryanair because they offer customer-oriented and friendly service or a good website?
I have read (on The Register) recently that Ryanair are thinking about charging people to use the bog on their planes. Says it all doesn’t it. Cheers… Ishy
People like me are reading this blog because lots of main stream newspapers are linking to it. I prefer to read the evidence and make my own decision regarding the Ryanair guilt instead of relying on the opinions of journalists.
It has also been exceptional funny to read, but my main interests are national economy, regulatory affairs, politics and company news, but it is interesting to read about a case like this one and see if it will affect corporate strategies. This case will give many clues about the degree of power that bloggers has obtained
Tsk Tsk… Just another nail in the coffin to the lack of service airline no 1 Ryan air. M.O’leary is more busy ofering blowjobs to the customers, Offer Drug smuglers he wont loose their luggage and charge for toilet use than creating a good tone. Ryan air is manegement by fear and this tone the Ryan air staff is using is quite normal among themselves in the company. Unfortunately today they showed their ugly face to the public and not just to some skinny, freightened little check republic stewardess who paid 2000 ukp. for her socalled education and getting paid fuckall in return for her hard work / 6 days on 2 days off) Thank O’leary and company.. you are all stars
It continues. Someone sack McNamara.
Wow 434 posts, I feel dizzy after reading all of above, just like a short haul flight with Ryanair,
more good publicity for Michael O Leary, media savvy at its best.
Slan go foil,
————————————————
There is also possibility to input price as text in textbox on last screen
(for example zero)
However i tested Ryanair website many times
(watching HTTP headers to find any bug and I couldnt find any
allowing me to change price for ticket)
Also their price is now generated by scrammbled dynamicly generated
JavaScript script what makes impossible (so far) to read
price by using simple tools such cUrl / similar.
By using Selenium or/ similar software it works obviously perfect
but require computing power and dedicated host.
I DONT REALLY UNDERSTAND WHY RYANAIR DOESNT SHOW
WHOLE MONTH PAGE WITH PRICES
THAT PROBABLY WOULD REALLY REDUCE PROCESSING POWER
THEY NEED NOW !!
Another suggestion :
WHY THEY NOT JUST GIVE AWAY API TO ACCESS PRICES DIRECTLY FROM DATABASE SO DEVELOPERS DONT NEED TO USE
SCREEN SCRAPPERS
finally – I am not from any software developer company
————————————————
Personally I don’t use Ryanair. It is not a cheap solution, It makes me just feel cheap; the experience is so ridiculous that I don’t know why people still use it. Paying for luggage, paying for pee, blue and yellow seat and advertisement all over. I check the site and it says free seats. I go to checkout and the price is over 100£ after all the “extra”. I don’t even check the site anymore for flights.
> WHY THEY NOT JUST GIVE AWAY API TO ACCESS PRICES DIRECTLY
> FROM DATABASE SO DEVELOPERS DONT NEED TO USE SCREEN SCRAPPERS
Why don’t people just leave their cars unlocked with the keys in the
ignition, so that burglers don’t have to crack the lock, or hotwire
the Car?
[..]RyanAir at times get bad press and in turn have a bad reputation. Unfortunately for them, its blatantly obvious to see why….[..]
I just don’t think it is acceptable to tell your customer, no matter who you are or how cheap your service offering is that they are “an idiot” and “stupid” to their face, blog or in a letter. It is firstly rude, secondly bad communication and thirdly shows a complete disrepect and disregard for customers in general. There maybe no such thing as “bad publicity” but there is such a thing as “bad taste” and I think this handling of the event has stunk. I totally dis in return the Corporate Communication guy who then proceeded on a media interview to dis the entire blogosphere as “lunatic bloggers” how dare you!
Ryan air staff are rude and they want to make you pay to pee on their flights. Avoid ryan air they are a bad company.
I’m more annoyed about the wordpress comment, wordpress is A1 good enough for these people …….uuuuuuuuuuuuu
Well, I have used Ryanair, and even linked to them from our resort websites, but due to their arrogance and continued disrespect for customers I am removing the links and not suggesting our guests fly Ryanair.
Hopefully other airlines will win market share and offer better alternatives on our destinations (such as GRO and BLL).
I happen to works for a fairly large website. Tiny company, large website. I’m a very good developer but the site is still full of bugs (admittedly several people have worked on it).
I’ve found bugs on tonnes of sites and it would have to be far more severe than this for me to blog about. Sorry my standards are simply higher. I have to actually agree with the Ryan Air staff member’s point of view (despite his somewhat excessively hostile tone) because as a bad-ass developer who actually knows a fair bit I can tell that he is entirely right in saying that this isn’t a bug that needs fixing straight away or greater attention. It’s an aesthetic bug that without instruction very few people are going to encounter. Also “Locking down sessions” really means nothing in this context.
It’s kind of petty and sad that you even reported such a minor quirk. Although I agree with Ryanair staff, I suspect their site does have some bugs. Many of which have been reported here in the comments, were several orders of magnitude worse and more attention worthy than your own.
Why is it that to customer is allowed to treat the staff like shit in all situations but not the staff. It should be both or neither. The way I see it he’s just getting his own back.
Thanks for linking back to our blog post – this story is hysterical – Ryanair really needs to get a clue, and we hope all the publicity has been good for you too, Jason!
Great Jason Roe.
E inaccettabile il comportamento della Ryanair considerano i clienti come mucche da mungere. PREFERISCO PAGARE DI PIU CHE VOLARE CON LORO!
To Ryanair technical staff,
If your website is such a nightmare to maintain and you feel you are under-resourced in managing it then change it. Create a new website. Create one that is easier to use and easier to work with.
Your counter argument may be ‘but we haven’t the resources to build a decent site woof woof woof’. My counter argument to that is if you are working with a haphazardly coded and poorly made site, of course it will be a nightmare for you.
Why are you digging through rock when you can dig through sand??
I will boycott Ryanair starting now. I can’t stand companies acting so rude with costumers.
Michael O’Leary is a freakin genius.
They intend on charging for a piss and then they slag off someone who has found a vulnerabiloity in their website. This company might as well cancel its flight schedule from Bournemouth now.
You made The Register today! Hats off. I’m from Canada, but RyanAir sure came across looking foolish today.
Email me to discuss an SEO contract I may have for you…
Jason,
You should start charging the Ryanair staff £1 to leave a comment on your blog…
Ryan Air is now going to charge you to take a piss in the air!!!! That’s just crazy. The toilet doors are gonna have coin slots to open them. Unbelievable. Just make sure you got coins in your wallet
There was an article recently saying that Ryanair plans to charge customers to use the bogs on their planes.
This was a misprint.
They are actually planning to charge for using BLOGS [or reading them] on their planes, if the the blogs specifically mention Ryanair.
Only fair.
I personnally hate Ryanair. I booked a flight a few months back, charges were not clear (the insurance is “hidden”) and you have to use this a lot to know how to reduce costs… not very user friendly.
Now, got my flight canceled due to extreme conditions… and was offered a 25€ voucher… for a 250€ flight with taxes. I simply avoid Ryan air for a better service and more reliable one with easyjet.
Ryan air staff shows how arrogant they can be with those comments here. O’Leary has to change dramatically his way to handle this.
Johann: …you bought a *250 euro* flight with RYANAIR?
why on Earth??
to be fair to ryanair, it doesn’t exactly take rocket science to avoid the extra fees on the webpage. just unclick whatever it is that you don’t need/want and watch prices plummet to a ridiculous degree.
for a tenner to Venice/Glasgow/Liverpool i’ll put up with any amount of rude staff (frankly, i have no contact with them at all by paying online, not checking luggage and sleeping through the entire flight).
Ok cheap sells, but it doesn’t cover for the needs of loyal customers. Rewarding loyalty by consideration and appreciation is also free, if not, you can ask Dell all about it, they have since learned.
Hey Jason,
Have you seen the new charges Ryanair are introducing to check in on the web from May – even if you’re not carrying luggage. It’ll add €10 for a return journey from my understanding of their release.
I just threw up a blog post about it – – have I misunderstood their release or are they really taking the piss?
Hugh
Ryanair Staff #1 has been awarded an IFFy Hero award by ignorantfecker.com
Hehe… 500 comments on a post.
Nice Job Jason
Is he really a staff of Ryanair?
I mean anyone can pretend to be a staff of Ryanair and comment in here.
Even he entered an email address we don’t konw whether he is a really holder of that e-mail address.
Sorry, I missed to check this comment. in#54
Even if the person writing it is a unskilled uneducated person the fact is that the IP addresses would seem to be Ryanair’s so it would be interesting to see if its company policy to let their staff post incoherent threatening rants on the internet during working hours.
The blog post was a bit limp (not much of a bug / vulnerability, by the looks), but fuck me, their response is disgusting.
Perhaps the savings they make by not paying a decent PR officer are handed down to the customer…
Sounds like Ryanair has the monkeys instead of the organ grinders running the show! Major fault or not, the responses are horrendous to say the least. I see the latest cunning stunt from Ryanair is to do away with check in altogether and just allow terrorists to fly anywhere they like (as long as their baggage isn’t too big!)
Is there a serious bug on the Ryanair booking engine? Here is my experience. On the 16th February last, I went online to book a flight from Dublin to London Gatwick. The flight cost 78.26 in total and I got a message on the on-line booking window saying “Amount paid – 78.62EUR, Amount due – 0.00EUR” On the same window (which rather fortunatley I screen grabbed as a PDF) another message stated “Booking is not confirmed until you receive email itinerary”. I left my home 2 days later to make the 2 hour drive to Dublin Airport, not having yet received the expected conformation. When I called to the Ryanair desk to collect my ticket I was informed that no ticket had been booked as my card had “been declined” – I immediately contacted Visa Card in Dublin, who promptly told me that they had NOT received any request for authorization from Ryanair on my card for several months. I tried in vain to point out to the Ryanair counter staff at the airport that the copy of the on-line booking form in my possession stated clearly – in RED writing – “Amount due – 0.00EUR” As I had a very urgent appointment in London, I ended up paying out €233 for the same seat which I had already booked and as I thought had paid for – and I used the same credit card which Ryanair said had been declined 2 days earlier – I am now writing to Ryanair to seek a refund of the difference – needless to say I am not hopeful, but I will keep you posted…….
Ray:
If this is true, you would appear to have the makings of a legal argument of sorts.
By ‘argument’ I mean that it’s entirely possible you could be legally in the right or that Ryanair could. (But see the P.S. below, in any case).
You would say that you had made a contract. (Obvious really, but it has to be said) and you would say they broke it by failing to honour the booking.
They would say it is a condition of the contract that you receive an email confirmation to complete the contract.
[In England as well as probably in nearly all common-law jurisdictions --- which because of its history first as a possession of the English Crown then subsequently as a former (1801-1926) part of the UK, the Republic of Ireland is such a common-law jurisdiction --- a Condition is a Term in a contract which if you breach it, is fatal to the contract (as opposed to a Warranty which if you breach it, the other party just gets damages)]
Ryanair might say it’s just common sense that you should get a confirmation of the booking before relying on it. and you are an eejit for thinking otherwise. And therefore there was no contract at all.
You would might it’s common sense that the website confirmed your price and the agreement between you, and then told you you had paid the agreed price and you are entitled to rely on that representation, and they are a bunch of fecking eejits for apparently losing your booking.
Now the last time I looked (about 2 years ago) there is actually some doubt about the exact time when an electronic contract is made in English law as the precedents are confused and pre-Internet and are about Victorian postal contracts and ships and 1970s telexes anyway, and in /any/ event there is no guarantee that Irish law would necessarily develop in the same way post-independence as English Law did anyway (though it might be persuasive, like all common-law countries may be).
So that’s what I mean about the possibility for an argument. Either side could be (legally) in the right. [Morally, Ryanair are never to be in the right to me....].
You would no doubt say there is no legal requirement to receive an email confirmation (emails can go astray .. e.g. in spam filters) as a &&Condition&& of the contract when you have just had the confirmation on screen that they have agreed to the price (consideration) and also to the time and date etc.
And if you were only told this AFTER agreeing to the terms of the contract, then even if it was enforceable as a Condition, then that Condition can’t be part of the contract in any event and thus not binding.
You won’t get anywhere with Ryan Scare customer service. I can almost guarantee this.
In my opinion, the only way to deal with companies like this is to put in writing what you are asking for (in money terms), give them 14 days to pay (or agree), and then issue a Claim (you probably still call it a Summons in the Republic) in whatever equivalent you have of Petty Debts or Small Claims Track.
But be prepared for a similar attack in the media against you, if this case is anything to go by.
Remember that in any claim that a contract was breached, one can claim for all losses that were a direct consequence of the claimed breach but here, as you got on the flight, the difference in price as you have claimed it would appear to be the only pecuniary loss. (If it was me this happened to, I’d ask for a single euro as nominal damages for ‘disappointment’ and the stress of the uncertainty you experienced).
PS: This is not legal advice. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV. I don’t hold myself out as having special skill and knowledge. Anyone who thinks they can rely on something they read on a blog written by the 513th pseudonymous poster without getting professional advice really would be an ‘idiot lunatic blogger’, and in need not only of professional advice but maybe professional help, too.
No time to read this entire page but I got free flights without any faffing about with browser sessions. Flying from LPL, can’t remember where to. In any case, that isn’t the customer’s problem if the site tells them it’s free. Even if you lose the session, tell them that you’ve lost the session. Don’t blindly echo the incorrect price.
Congratulations Ryanair Staffers, you have guaranteed that I will never fly with your crappy airline.
I’m fairly sure I’m not the only one.
Your situation made #5 in cracked.com’s “The 7 Most Idiotic Corporate Temper Tantrums” list. Cheers!
Unreal. As someone else said, if they think thats the appropriate way to treat people, then god help anyone who flys with them.
How come that happened? Well its a big advantage on your part getting a ticket without any charges on your credit card (hehehe) but still its quite mysterious on that issue… have you tried contacting that company? cause before I also booked a flight then when I am about to pay…..the amount was not lower that the previous pages which said that amount I should be paying…
how not to respond to a blogger
Let this be a message to flyers out there. I have had one experience with RyanAir, and I’d say it was “tolerable”, but even that experience has led me to believe that it is WELL WORTH IT to pay as much as $100 more to fly on a legitimate airline and avoid the risk of disaster with RyanAir.
It looks like RyanAir lacked in the Management department as well, most companies have policies in place regarding what employee’s can say online, and most explicitly disallow employee’s posting anything online.
This is definately one of the worst PR episodes in 2009!
Along with all the comments on this site, I hereby BOYCOTT RYANAIR.
I cannot believe an airline supposedly professional and in the public eye can behave in such a fashion. This is a perfect example of how a big corporate can appear to throw its weight around and alienate its customers. Sure there is a problem with the website, dont take it emotionally RyanAir. Take a rational stance, make a public note of the problem and explain what you are going to do to fix it. Turning it into a school yard pitch battle is not the way to do this. To my mind the perception of Ryanair is that of a hormonal adolescant teenager who lashes out at any critiscism. Accept the mistakes and problems and move on. No website is perfect, most have flaws.
Start treating the public as customers with the respect that they deserve instead of behaving as a money grabbing corporate.
have been caught in a PR storm this week and it all started with a humble blog post. Irish blogger Jason Roe, stumbled upon a glitch that meant the tickets he was buying went down to 0.00
Ryanair play a ‘fanfare’ when they land on time. ‘Nuff said.
Just read about the Ryanair responses on Cracked.com and I had to come look at their blatant idiocy…that is hilarious!
The story’s here:
Never dealt with ryanair staff and by the sounds of it I don’t want to!
I’ve been trying to buy a ryanair ticket for a week now and although I’ve tried from several different computers I can only find tickets that says 0.00 when I get to the point of buying the ticket. I bought one last week for me and was about to buy one for some frinds I wanted to travel with but we can’t get through and when I call and complain they say it is working though it isn’t regardless of the server. They have e-mail address and it’s getting expensive to call them as they have no service in Denmark where I am calling from. Meanwhile prices are going up. I wonder if it’s a ploy – maybe they don’t really want to sell to low-cost tickets. I don’t get it.
This is hilarious
@all the ryanair-ites trying to play devil’s advocate:
You are rather a sad bunch. I do admire your bravery, in spite of your anonymity, for pi$$ing into the wind, but I think you will find you are loosing a fighting battle. Take a look at the incoming links to this page – they are all in support of Jason as far as I can see (can’t read all of them, too many, better things to do).
I came to this page by searching in Google to see if anyone else knew about the 0.00 glitch (or feature, who cares) because *some fair old time ago* I twice managed a fiddle with the booking system. It is long gone, but I would be slightly more likely to fly RyanAir again if I could find another flaw.
So who cares if the title is misleading? That’s what blogging is all about – humour, rumours, etc. Get a life. You are clearly lacking one if you feel you have to spout bile at someone who did absolutely nothing wrong.
He even said himself that he didn’t take it any further, i.e. he admitted openly that he hadn’t substantiated the claim, but given that this is the 535th comment (unless someone got in while I was typing), you can appreciate that it is interesting for the public.
In fact it is not the title that raised interest, but the stupidity and arrogance of RyanAir staff that got this into international news. And rightly so. If not for that arrogance and rudeness, you wouldn’t know it existed and you wouldn’t be writing your petty, lowbrow comments. I bet you hate walking on asphalt, it must rip hell out of your knuckles.
Why the blast at WordPress? It’s a good, honest CMS and it’s free. That doesn’t mean you have to pay to click the download button, or purchase vital missing pieces of code. Nor does it charge you five quid for a cruddy sandwich. It’s good enough, it seems, for (correct me if I am wrong)::
New York Times (a little more upstream than RyanAir, albeit not a shoddy airline), Wall Street Journal Magazine (more ‘idiot bloggers’), and the list goes on. The interesting thing is how much prettier they are than RyanAir’s website. But of course it’s not a fair comparison because you are so understaffed and overstretched.
Which takes me on to my next point. This seems a good reason to really start thinking about who you fly with. I’ve flown a hell of a lot with RA. I used to be an opportunist flyer and grab flights for pennies or a few quid, sometimes just speculatively.
Then I really started to wonder if I was doing the right thing. Skimping here and saving there… how old is the fleet? How experienced are those pilots? How many of their simulated crash landings can those 747s take? How many more can I take?
The cabin crew member who pulled too hard during the demonstration and accidentally inflated her life jacket (until then I always thought dummies were used for safety purposes, by which I mean life jackets and not stewardesses).
One of the most frightening moments was an extremely heavy landing on an empty Prestwick runway followed by a handbrake turn at high speed shortly after. Why? Because I paid less? It actually hurt my back (though the possible reason was me clenching every muscle in my body and thus inadvertently compressing a vertebra), and that is the only time that ever happened on landing.
Now I really have to say (especially after reading this) that I am not willing to put my safety in the hands of an airline that clearly has little or no concern for its customers. And certainly not the safety of my family, now that my days of wild abandon have had to be wildly abandoned.
Good service and well-trained staff really makes you feel safer. The first time I flew Qatar, I felt so completely coddled in the care of the wonderful cabin crew, I had the overwhelming impression they wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. That they personally would make sure I was safe while hurtling through the air at 30,000 feet. And that was in economy class.
Even Virgin made me feel that I was unlikely to be flown into a mountain by a demented, suicidal pilot. I think it’s Richard’s beard. He will probably don a Superman costume and zoom to the rescue at many times the speed of sound.
But RyanAir – you took the last biscuit here. You’re really not even that cheap in the long run for a lot of destinations – Skavsta, for example – you have the cheek to call it Stockholm. It’s a twenty quid bus ride from Stockholm.
Journeys with flight changes are only for the incredibly determined.
As someone else here said, it will all be good for the RA business model until something goes wrong. You see, Air France can crash as many Airbuses as it wants, but its reputation won’t take long to bounce back. It has a smooth and shiny surface that mud will slide off.
RyanAir – with this attitude and your growing reputation for customer disregard, it will only take one serious incident for people to say, “We should have seen it coming.”
I recently flew Ryanair for the first and last time. I was with a party of 5 people and as we were offline for a few days while away at the location, were hit with a ´’service charge’ of £25 each because we did not check in on the Internet. The attitude I got of from the service desk was one of arrogance. Where do they get these morons from? Why were we given the impression that we were privileged to be able to fly with them? I am only surprised that the pilot did not come around asking for a donation towards his pay! What a shoddy, shoddy company! If this is the future of the airline industry, I would rather not travel!
540th comment, not wasting much words on it, not that it’s needed since it can all be summarized into one sentence:
Public Relations 101 needed @Ryanair.
all these years I’ve avoided flying RA and I see for a very good reason, too. I plan to keep it that way. Of course, not a big loss to RA.