Indeed,while EasyJet finally ended up paying 1, 5M Euros, Ryanair’s penalties could reach  €4,5M. Throughout the process, in order to lower its costs and fees, Ryanair has been using the same strategy as easyJet, which is to take advantage of the lower protection and charges of British Law/Irish law.It seems Ryanair’s streak of bad luck is not over. Ryanair is also under investigation regarding public subsidies, an Irish Times article reported just last week end. Gerry Byrne points tells the truth about the Ryanair business model, exposing just how Ryanair gets such important financial support from publics authorities.

In France, Air France has already filed a complaint against Ryanair, and it is now Lufthansa’s turn to express its discontent over the Lubeck public authorities having signed a new two-year agreement with the Irish airline. The amount of subsidies however has not been published. Ryanair is currently under investigation in relation to 7 airports over what Lufthansa calls “questionable subsidies”.

Indeed, the French Labour Court may have set a precedent in the low-cost airline market. When I first reported the news, last year, fine estimations were between £200,000 and €10M. One can now ask what will happen to other airline who fail to accurately declare their workforce? Indeed, EasyJet is not the only company with French labour law violations, Ryanair is also facing important charges. The Irish budget airline is using the same principle than easyJet, taking advantage of the lower protection and charges of British Law/Irish law. Its business model does not include employment contract protection or a union. A French MP recently denunciated Ryanair model because of its “low cost” employer policy.

Using the toilet on a Ryanair flight will cost you £1 or 1 Euro and you cannot protest before having to pay, since the toilets will be coin operated. Moreover, expect to stay in line before using the toilet, since the officials of Ryanair are also planning to cut to number of on board toilets to just… one. The new rate will be introduced in the fall.

Moreover, the company intends to raise the charge for checked in luggages from £15 to £20, during summer. “We are determined to incentivise passengers to travel light this summer by increasing our checked-in baggage fees for the months of July and August only”, spokesman Stephen McNamara says.

This is clearly a “family tax”, since they are the ones that need luggages. Just imagine going on vacation with a couple of young kids and just a handbag of spare clothes. Does not sound like such a good idea, does it? Therefore, if flying on a Ryanair plane this summer, with a noisy family in the cabin, make sure to ask them if they have a checked-in bag before complaining about the situation. Why? Because they might be the ones whom you owe those low ticket fares you took advantage of.

As he explained, the company does not have employees sitting around to answer silly questions which people ask around social networks like whether it is ok to carry a bag weighing 10 kg during their travel. According to him answers to these sorts of questions can be easily found on the company website.

Ryanair Long-haul flights have \”blowjobs\” included!

In the recent world of social media there lie a lot of issues and big companies are learning fast from their mistakes which they suffered when dealing with customers through solial media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. It is mainly because of the wrong way in which the companies approach social media.

But there is a big difference with Ryanair. Everyone working in Ryanair knows exactly how to deal with this game and the company also knows how to handle the sarcastic but hilarious O’Leary and Co. one of Michael O’Leary’s Twitter streams contain non-stop insights of the continuous failings of his competitors along with the uselessness of the DAA.

Indeed, the Irish low cost airline forgot 63 French schoolboys at London Stansted Airport even if they were at the airport two and a half hours before scheduled departure time. However, at the airport, Ryanair had only opened one desk. And despite teachers’ complaints about long registration time and request to open a dedicated desk for the 63 children, nothing was done.

2 hours later, the 63 students and their seven accompanying adults found themselves stranded at the airport. According to French teachers, Ryanair did not provide any support to the schoolboys. The company only later offered to send bthe children back within four days by splitting the group in four smaller groups! It would appear that Ryanair did not accept the schoolboys because  the plane was already full when the class reached Ryanair’s desk. The supervisors of the group declared:

“We believe that there had been of overbooking on the flight and that there was not enough seats on board.”

An overbooking problem that might cost the Mayor of St. Jacques de Compostela a lot!

Indeed, Ryanair has a different story. According to its spokesman, Daniel de Carvalho, the group of schoolchildren had not appeared  until 40 minutes before flight departure, Ryanair’s recommended time for boarding. The airline said “the flight departed  51 minutes late with 102 passengers and 87 vacancies. As the seats remained empty in their absence, there is no basis for possible compensation.”

Beyond the Story

Ryanair’s business model forces the airline to reduce costs to a maximum. That means that Ryanair planes only have 20 minutes between flights. Ryanair’s crew has to check and clean the airplane then insure registration and boarding. This, might explain why Ryanair was not able to open a second registration desk.

Once more, Ryanair failed to show any respect for its passengers, even when there are underage!

According to Air France, Ryanair received 660 million euros in 2008 in the form of reduced landing fees and airport taxes. While Air France avoided to make any comments regarding their action, Ryanair said the accusations are false, a spokesman adding: “It’s Air France that is getting illegal aid in terms of reduced airport taxes on its domestic routes in France.”

The European Commission opened an investigation to see if Ryanair, the Irish low-cost airline, is getting preferential treatment at European airports.

Previously, in 2008, Ryanair won an appeal when a European anti-trust court overturned a decision from Brussels, that made the company reimburse aid received from a regional airport in Belgium.

The news will be updated as soon as we receive more info.

Here is a list of all illegal subsidies of Ryanair’s in France (source AirObserver):

Ryanair already operated out of Ostende in the past. Back in May 2003, Ryanair launched a route between the Belgian coast and London, a route that had turned out to be a failed project as flights were poorly programmed.
The airport, in order to become more attractive was renamed Ostende-Bruges Airport. The main problem was the competition of the Eurostar and ferries.
As a result of this failed attempt, Ryanair would have planned to instead operate routes towards Spain. Malaga and Geronna have both been mentionned by several websites.

Ryanair asks 2,3 million euro:

As any new route that Ryanair opens, it involves grants and public money. Ryanair made the headlines of several French regional newspapers last week due to stories of blackmail used in order to increase airport fees at Angouleme and Poitiers. Last week again, Grenada Spain local authorities announced it would not be able to pay Ryanair, as the amount was to important for service received… A different country but one same story…
And then in Italy, Alghero also said no to Ryanair’s financial support demands.

Belgium authorities are however currently negociating with Ryanair, and according to Belgium sources, Ryanair would have asked for about one million euros. Several voices have already protested against this type of aid, declaring it should be banned by the EU Commission.
The Flemish authorities, who always have been very critical to aids given by the Walloon Region for the development of Charleroi, seem to totally overlook this fact when it comes to their airport!
But as many politicians would, Bruges authorities dream of the thousands of tourist that Ryanair most probably promised!

Air Slovakia financial difficulties are related to major outstanding debt besides its business partners, its employees and insurances. Like others airlines, Air Slovakia also met troubles regarding to irregularities with unpaid taxes and health-insurance payments

After the failure of Seagle Air and Sky Europe, This is the third Slovakian company which will probably stop its activity the last 6 months. The east European aviation market is a major issue, especially for low cost airlines. Few months ago, some rumours spread about the possible bankruptcy of Wizz Air. How long it will take to Ryanair to be in control of this market?

Though Stephen McNamara at Ryanair says, Ryanair will carry more than 73 million passengers this year at the lowest possible fares, but its charges are increased by 61 percent as compared against other airlines – Bmibaby, Jet2 and easyJet. It is also reported that Ryanair is charging its passengers for each piece of luggage they are carrying by credit card.

In another report Ryanair has been hit by Irish government. Government claims that the company has ignored a huge jobs offer. The reason behind this as stated by the company is the presence of huge obstacles.

As the Irish Times reported two weeks ago in an interesting article, Michel Boutant, a French representative, did not accept the way Ryanair tried to negotiate a better deal. To block what he named Ryanair’s financial blackmail, Boutant has called for the creation of a common front against Ryanair and asked other regional airports to not give in to the airline’s demands, saying it was adept at playing the “competition card” by threatening to move its services elsewhere.

Boutant guessed right… At the same time, Ryanair sent a request to Pau Airport (a French city located in the southwest of France). This time, Ryanair asked to quadruple subsidies on the route, to €1.4 million, and threatened to move out its services.

Did the French Regional airport spread the word?

Yesterday, the news came from Italy. Alghero Airport (Sardinia, Italy) announced that Ryanair is to stops all its flight. In the Ryanair PR press release the following was stated:

“Unfortunately the lack of support on the part of the local administration and the airport for Ryanair’s growth in Alghero has led to the cancellation of seven Ryanair services”

What I immediately understood when I read Ryanair’s PR release is that Alghero refused to give millions of euros without any guarantee or any compensation. Just as Angouleme Airport did.

According to a web site, other Italian airports are going to make public Ryanair’s methods to try and put a stop to low cost airlines using public money to be able to offer low fares.

In France, a survey estimates that Ryanair received around 35 millions euros in public grants in 2008 (almost 10% of Ryanair’s profits in 2008).  A French union talks about 650M€ for Europe, but figures have not yet been released. It is therefore very hard to estimate how much public grant money Ryanair could have received over the past few years. But day after day, all across Europe, this kind of news seems to indicate that public money is a major part of Ryanair’s revenue.