Ryan Air flicks my switch

Ryanair Charity Calendar 2008, another reason to fly Ryanair

You know what I like RyanAir, in fact I’ll say it louder I LIKE RYANAIR A LOT.

I like what Michael O’Leary has done for opening up the world with cheap flights.

I am utterly bored and somewhat disgusted by the looking the gift horse in the mouth attitude that people have when dismissively talking about Ryan and then taking it anyway – hypocrites.

This week John Fingleton, the chief executive of the UK Office of Fair Trading, described Ryanair’s charging for using credit cards online as “puerile” and “almost childish”.

Well exccuuuse me.

It’s not like the bigger National carriers do us any favours, for example BA got fined GBP121 million three years ago for price fixing, so spare the tears over a tenner.

We all know Ryan is a bit cheeky with charges and perhaps borderline misleading – certainly with the implied proximity of some airports, Milan leaps to mind, it’s Milan East, something like D’Orrio and that is getting on for Venice, but as no one else came anywhere near to getting me a flight to Eindhoven it was the best choice available to me. Still you pays your money – just stop whining about it.

Coffee costs money, a roll ain’t free and credit cards demand something for the convenience from the trader – in this case Ryan Air – so for the luxury of booking over the web any time of day you want rather than running to a travel agency at lunch and dealing with queues as everyone else can only go at that time, suck it up and pay the fiver per person, each way.

This does feel like a rip off, one charge per transaction would seem fairer, but if you don’t like it there are options, which we shall now look at:

The two airports best suited for Serre Chevalier are Grenoble and Turin, RyanAir serves them both, so does Easy Jet and BA just Turin.

Being a softy southern, shandy-drinking (it is refreshing on a hot day) Londoner this is the place I will be using as the UK start point in late Jan, using two adults and two kids for the test taking return journeys.

RyanAir: Jan 21-28 from Stanstead, with hand luggage only.

Grenoble GBP 111.92 return for four inc tax, plus 40 card charge =  GBP 151.92

Turin       GBP 163.92 return for four inc tax, plus 40 card charge =  GBP 203.92

EasyJet, with hand luggage only.

Grenoble, Jan 21-28 from Gatwick return for four inc tax =  GBP 210.64

Turin       Jan 22-29 from Luton return for four inc tax =  GBP 187.00

BA, with 92 kg of hold luggage and hand luggage

Turin Jan 21-28 from Gatwick return for four inc tax = GBP 570.00

There is no direct flight to Grenoble

So there you are, next don’t forget to start whining about the times the planes leave. One tip that I recommend is as one friend of mine did last year wear absolutely everything you can onto the plane. That or book one bulky/ sports item between you and stuffing it with all your clothes, it’s about 20 quid a bag, but my brain hurts from doing all this stuff so you’re on your own there. If you’re big enough to go sking you’re big enough to work that out for yourself.

Fingleton smingleton.