RYANAIR 'STUFF'!!

Ryanair passengers flying on Friday evening or over the weekend could be walloped with a £60 per person charge, or £240 for a family of hour, if they fail to check in even earlier than normal.

The budget airline is closing its website from 10pm on Friday and all day on Saturday for an upgrade.

What's more, its online check-in service will be unavailable from 4pm on Friday.

But the airline has confirmed it will not give an amnesty to passengers who are unable to check in online and print their boarding pass themselves — even if they physically cannot do so.

Instead, it will continue its usual policy over the weekend of charging £60 per person, per flight, or €60 outside the UK, to issue a boarding pass at the airport, even though passengers may be unable to print their own.

Passengers flying on Sunday should also consider printing boarding passes before 4pm on Friday, in case work on Ryanair's website overruns. You can check in now for flights this weekend.

The airline, which has a vast list of fees it levies on top of its ticket prices, says it is contacting those travelling this weekend to inform them of the news.

However, many passengers, especially those on holiday who want to switch off by turning off emails, may not find out until they get to the airport.

'Outrageous'

Dan Plant, MoneySavingExpert.com money analyst, says: "All websites need a bit of downtime for maintenance now and then, but to wallop every unsuspecting customer with a £60 charge if they don't spot this in time is absolutely outrageous.

"Spare a thought for all the holidaymakers who have turned off emails to relax, who may not receive Ryanair's message and face having to empty their wallets at check-in.

"To not allow any exemptions for this is a spectacularly poor show."

The airline's policy states you must print off your boarding pass at least four hours before your flight departs to avoid the airport fee.

Ryanair's Stephen McNamara says: "As 'Manage my Booking' will be unavailable during this website closure, we have advised all passengers due to travel over the coming weekend to check-in on Ryanair.com before 4pm on Friday."

Source: Moneysavingexpert

Safety probe into Ryanair's £10 charge for emergency exit seats which leaves crucial rows empty as passengers refuse to pay for a little extra legroom.

Click on blue link below to read more!

Source: Daily Mail

The budget airline said it would reduce its number of aircraft based there from seven to six and would cut five routes.

This followed the breakdown in talks with operator BAA over a reduction in charges for using the airport.

It will stop flying to Berlin in Germany; Malmo in Sweden; Murcia and Ibiza in Spain and Tallinn in Estonia.

Source: BBC  (Click link to read further)

Source: SimplyNetworking

RYANAIR’S CASE against AENA Alicante’s forced use of air bridges goes to the Alicante Court of Appeal next Tuesday. Due to the impending hearing, RTN was invited to attend a press conference with Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary to get his take on the situation which, if the court rules against the company, will see the withdrawal of 300 flights and the loss of 1.5 million passengers and 1,500 jobs.

The airline chief told RTN: “If the court backs our appeal, we will reverse the decision immediately and by the end of February all those flights will be back on sale on the website for the summer months.” He added: “We don’t spend money on expensive PR and marketing as we like to keep our costs low and our flights cheap, but when we need to make a noise, we will do and that is what we are doing here today.”

BLACKMAIL
Currently Ryanair has eleven bases in Spain and fly to 22 airports with more than 500 routes carrying 34 million passengers. They are expecting delivery of eleven new planes direct from Boeing later this year and O’Leary stated that he plans to capitalise on the recent bankruptcy of Spanair by using some of those new aircraft on the lucrative Barcelona – Alicante route. But only if the air bridge decision is overturned.

When RTN asked what he thought to the allegations that he was ‘blackmailing’ the airport company into submission by his claims he said: “How can you blackmail a state run organisation like AENA? These are not heavy handed tactics because you just cannot do that to AENA. The truth of the matter is they don’t give a s**t about this. All they care about is getting the money back on that great big cathedral of an airport terminal that was built to please some politician.”

CHAOS
Whatever the arguments are, one thing is certain and that is unless the decision is reversed on Tuesday, these cuts to routes, passengers and jobs will happen. O’Leary explained: “If we have to use the air bridges, passengers can only leave from the front of the plane and therefore our 25 minute turnaround cannot happen. And as we have to adhere to strict air traffic slots, even a five minute delay could mean a delay of up to an hour which will throw our whole operation into chaos.”

The airport company has offered to allow Ryanair to disembark by foot during the winter but not during the busier summer due to health and safety. Mr O’Leary commented: “How can it be okay to do that in the winter but not in the summer? It makes no sense.” AENA then offered them buses, which would cost more than they are charging for air bridges. The airline boss said: “That proposal took us about two seconds to analyse and say no to. It was a stupid proposal in a long line of stupid proposals.” He concluded: “We don’t need any more daft suggestions by AENA, we just need the right solution.”

And so does the Costa Blanca.

Source: RoundTownNews

Source: TypicallySpanish 

The Alicante provincial court has turned down an appeal by Ryanair in favour of boarding on foot at Alicante Airport, and has upheld an earlier decision by a Mercantile Court that the passenger airbridges must be used at the new terminal at El Altet.

The low-cost airline’s continuing dispute with AENA Spanish Airports embarkation regulations at El Altet led Ryanair to announce 50% cutbacks at Alicante earlier this month.

Europa Press reports that Ryanair had argued that embarking and disembarking on foot is part of their business model as a low-cost airline in keeping operational costs as low as possible in order to attract more passengers. The provincial court however considered there was ‘reasonable doubt’ of any ‘immediate irreversible’ damage use of the airbridges could cause to the company.

The court also not in its ruling made public on Thursday that the airline uses passengers airbridges at other Spanish airports and so embarking on foot, ‘is not an essential factor of their operations.’

It’s understood that there can be no appeal against the court’s decision.

In a statement issued on Friday, in reference to the continued issues surrounding the airline Ryanair and their unwillingness to negotiate, the Spanish airport authority AENA announced that they are “willing to continue to explore every possibility to facilitate the operation of their customers and airlines, without forgetting the commitment to quality… within the framework of security”.

SOURCE: COSTA BLANCA NEWS

RYANAIR ANNOUNCED on Tuesday a 50% summer 2012 cutback on its Alicante service, following  a 50% cut in Ryanair’s winter 2011/12 services.  El Altet will lose six base aircraft, 18 routes and traffic of an estimated 1.5 million passengers. 

During November, the first month of these cutbacks, Ryanair estimates that Alicante’s seat capacity has fallen 50% from its October figure, with traffic is down 12% on November 2010.

Ryanair blames the cuts directly on airport authority AENA’s air bridge policy that compelled no-frills Ryanair to pay some €2m p.a. in fees at Alicante instead of boarding directly from the ground as they do everywhere else in Europe.

At a press conference in Alicante, Ryanair dismissed AENA’s ‘false claims’ about the air bridge issue as follows:

“AENA have claimed that air bridge use is a ‘safety issue’.  This is untrue.  The majority of flights boarding at most Spanish and other EU airports operate without air bridges and with absolute safety.  Even very large airports such as London Stansted and Gatwick permit walk on/walk off boarding with no use of air bridges.  AENA has claimed that half of Alicante’s flights can board using walk on/walk off procedures, with the other half using air bridges, clearly disproving that the claim that the compulsory air bridge use is a ‘safety issue’. 

“AENA has claimed that Ryanair’s cutbacks were ‘planned anyway’.  Again this claim is untrue.  Ryanair’s route and traffic cuts at Alicante are the direct result of AENA’s decision to force Ryanair to use and pay for unnecessary air bridges. 

REVERSE

Ryanair has confirmed that if this compulsory air bridge use is withdrawn, then these Alicante flight, traffic and jobs cuts will be reversed.

Announcing 50% cuts for 2012 in Alicante, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: “When Ryanair announced these cuts earlier this year AENA Alicante claimed that other airlines would step in and take up these flights.  The evidence of Alicante’s 12% traffic decline in November proves these claims were also false.

“Ryanair is the only airline capable of growing traffic rapidly at Alicante, and without us no one else seems willing to grow or use and pay for these unnecessary air bridges either.  AENA Alicante is now proving that inefficient air bridges and higher fees will result in the airport suffering route, traffic and job cuts.  We call yet again on AENA to reverse this abusive decision to force Ryanair and other airlines to use and pay for unnecessary air bridges at Alicante. 

COURT

In the meantime Ryanair and AENA are to face each other in the Spanish courts again in early February.  If Ryanair’s appeal is successful, the cuts at Alicante could be reversed in time for Summer 2012.

For now, Palma de Mallorca will benefit from the partial abandonment of operations at Alicante, as Ryanair opened a base in the Sont San Joan Airport, where the company does use the jet ways, with four of the planes removed from El Altet.


Source: Round Town News 16-12-2011

 Source: Simplynetworking.es

Source: Simplynetworking

Ryanair say flight cancellations WILL go ahead at Alicante airport.

DEADLOCK: Neither Ryanair nor Aena will back down over the use of airbridges.