Ok, so…here’s a joke, since you were kind enough to click on this link. It’s a joke with tons of grains of truth to it. Story to follow:
The Joke
So, your man is at the airport, waiting for his flight. He’s sitting in the lounge, knocking back a few pints when he eyes this gorgeous leggy brunnette at the table near him, with her back to him. He starts to wonder how to get her attention.
Thinking she’s probably an off-duty air-hostess, he starts singing the theme songs of various airlines, in the hopes she’ll respond to one of them.
“Fly the Friendly Skies…” he harmonizes.
No response.
“We do it all for you…” he sings.
No response.
“Something special in the air…” he croons.
Finally, she turns around to him and snaps,
"What the FECK do you want?"
“Ahh…so it’s Ryan Air, is it?” he says, knowingly.
The True Story Behind the Joke
So, yesterday, I book a ticket on Ryan Air’s website for a trip from Beauvais to Dublin. They advertise tickets for $19Euros roundtrip, but those seats are never available. I find two adult tickets and an infant ticket (at 8Euros each way) for 379Euros roundtrip. That includes taxes (a whopping 88Euros) and all.
Keep in mind, that Ryan Air is ‘the’ discount option. With Ryan Air, you have to train it out to Porte Maillot, then take a 1.5 hour shuttle ride to a remote airline. That’s how they make their money, but avoiding the large landing fees at Roissy. They land at remote airports all over Europe, and this allegedly saves one money.
Ok, so, about 10 minutes after I make the booking, I get a call from my darling Mother-in-Law, who wants us to change our booking so that we can attend my nephews baptism. Grudingly, I agree to change it. See, my daughter’s birthday occurs between the original date and the date she wants us to change to. That means she goes from paying the fare of 8Euros each way to paying over 200Euros round trip. My MIL says she’ll pay the difference for us. Great, I think.
So, I ring the Ryan Air Paris office. I’m greated with BLARING U2, and a message that this call is costing me 34 cents a minute. I wait for about five minutes and finally get an operator who tells me the computers are down and would I please call back.
I call back later, to be told this.
Ryan Air has a no cancellation policy. If you cancel, you get ZERO money back.
We’ll have to pay an extra 25Euros per person PER FLIGHT (so that’s 100Euros extra, for hub and myself) plus the extra cost that the new date incurs. Also, since my daughter is older, we’ll have to pay full price for her. In other words, there is no difference between fares for a 2years and one day old and an adult. There is no children’s fare. Either you are an infant (0-23 months) or an adult. Great.
This brings the whopping total up to 728Euros. So, I ring today to change the ticket, and I’m told, that because the ticket is actually being changed from infant to adult, I’ll have to pay the changing fee for my daughter, too. (cha-ching) But I couldn’t call the office here in France, I had to call the head office in Ireland, and pay long distance rates to be transferred to every dumbshit operator in the company, just to be told the same thing I heard from the office here in France. They are all rude, totally unsympathetic and just all around annoying.
In total, we’ll be paying 758Euros for a trip on a shitty airline, that serves no drinks or snacks. In addition, we have the pleasure of riding one hour on the train, then transferring twice, then boarding a bus to the airport.
Just for comparison’s sake, we could take Air France on the same dates, with better flight departure times for 666Euros.
Lesson learned. Fuck you Ryan Air, and fucking your humping discount garbage. I generally like to support smaller businesses, but with the shitty service, ridiculous policies and inconvenient airport usage, it’s the last time.
I’m sending this letter to Ryan Air President. I’m sure he’ll say, “Sorry, have a free drink voucher,” or some such gack.
