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Tag: Ryanair

  • Gdansk Group Trip – Day 1 (The Ryanair Flight to Gdansk)

    Gdansk Group Trip – Day 1 (The Ryanair Flight to Gdansk)

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    All this telling me to relax is very stressful. I just want to know when and where the aircraft is going from, I like being in a state of heightened tension before a flight and certainly not relaxing. Things have moved about since I was last at Stansted a few years ago and my favourite seating area has gone, but I found a quiet seating area a level below the main terminal which was rather peaceful and delightful. Or as much as these things can be anyway.

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    Safely at gate 49 and I have to comment positively that Ryanair are incredibly efficient when things go right. The signage is clear, it’s obvious where to stand, the process is managed well and they do this better than British Airways which often is either organised chaos or not organised at all.

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    The big long queue to board, but the wait was for only five minutes or so.

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    At least with no airbridge I can take a photo of the aircraft. The aircraft is SP-RNA which was brought into use in 2008 and has a few weeks ago been transferred to Buzz, which are a division of Ryanair. What I find fascinating is that this aircraft will be used for seven flights today, from Stansted to Gdansk to Prague to Gdansk to Oslo to Gdansk to Dublin and back to Gdansk. They get their money’s worth out of these Boeing 737s.

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    The flight was nearly full and I cannot fault Ryanair for the service today. The cabin crew were pro-active and polite, the pilots made clear announcements, the aircraft was clean and everything was organised and on time. This flight cost £25 and I have to note that I’ve been surprised and delighted by Ryanair. I was asleep for most of the flight, but I received exactly what I paid for which was simply a glorified bus journey and they don’t pretend that it’s anything more than that. I’ve never actually had any problems with Ryanair after over a decade travelling with them, but when things go wrong they do have a poor reputation of fixing the issues.

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    Safely at Gdansk Airport where three shuttle buses swept passengers away to the main terminal.

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    Where we had to wait of course because we’re not in Schengen and the border guard, who was very amenable, spent some time adding up the number of days that I’ve been in the European Union. But it’s good to be back in Poland and the weather is warm and frankly too hot. But I don’t complain.

  • Ryanair (Santiago de Compostela Airport to London Stansted)

    I don’t often write up my flights on Ryanair, as there’s a limited amount that can be said about the experience. The boarding process is though becoming slightly farcical as the priority queue has now increased to being around 75% of everyone boarding, although I have to say that it is an organised process.

    The aircraft was EI-FZL, a Boeing 737-800, which Ryanair had purchased in April 2017. The aircraft set off on time and was also back in Stansted on time.

    The seating on board, which was clean and sufficiently spacious given that this is a budget airline. I had been automatically allocated an aisle seat for free (woooo), with the other two passengers on this row arriving soon after I took the photo.

    The safety demonstration was appalling and one of the worst that I can recall on any flight. The crew did nothing to try and quieten the cabin down and I’m not sure that many people were able to hear the safety announcements. I’ve been on British Airways and American Airlines flights where the crew have stopped the demonstration if the cabin wasn’t quiet, which does reassure me somewhat that the crew are focused on safety.

    I couldn’t hear the announcements from the pilots either due to the cabin noise, which is not a problem, but isn’t ideal. The flight was the usual constant process of trying to sell things to customers, which is fine given the price of the flight, but it’s again not conducive to a peaceful flight. And, on this particular flight, there were two crew members who didn’t seem to be entirely nimble on their feet and managed to keep bumping into passengers on the aisle seats.

    I can’t recall how many Ryanair flights I’ve taken, I think it’s something around the eighty sectors mark over the last ten years. I’m now reluctant to book with them again though, primarily because the outbound flight was potentially caught up in the crew strikes. This concerns me because Ryanair’s IRROPS handling is inadequate and although I’ve never had a problem, it’s an additional factor which I’d rather not have to be concerned about. And, frankly, I’ve become too attached to Oneworld airlines (not literally, although British Airways do need to clean their cabins better).