Horrible experience with RyanAir
22nd November, Finally. We were all ready for our first flight out of UK and we had booked RyanAir’s flight from London to Turin. The flight was to depart from Stansted which was really far from London, but then again, so is Gatwick – so if you want cheap, I guess you need to travel to one of these funky airports.
Anyway, so the flight was meant to be at 06:50 and we had done the check-in online and everything. So we were at the airport at about 4.30am and in the queue to get our bags into the cargo – we had purchased 4 bags x 20 kilos in advance.
Now, when I was buying the ticket, I went on a chat with the Ryan air staff to ask if we were buying pieces of luggage or weight. This means could I buy 20 kilos of luggage and have 2×10 kilo bags instead of 1×20 kilos and the reply I got was, yes I can. See the transcript below and tell me if this is what you understand as well.
Finally, after waiting for over an hour in the queue, I reach one of the 2 counter staff who are taking in bags. The staff at the counter, this really really rude lady, asks me how many bags I have purchased and I said 4×20 kilos but I have 3x20kilos and 2×10 kilos and she immediately asks me to repack them as she will not allow me to put these bags through. I try to explain to her that I had been misled by her customer service but she just asks me to repack. Now, because we made 2 bookings through RyanAir (I cannot remember why) I told the staff to check my wife and my kids in first, leaving me out for now – she simply refused to listen!
Realising I only have just over an 1 hr left time my flight departs, I ask if I can maybe shrink wrap both bags for them to accept it as one and she says you can try. I rush over to the shrink wrapping place where they tell me that for sure, the airline will not accept it as 1 bag. I go back to confirm and this time her manager says they will not accept it. So I ask her what I can do now and she now tells me, after wasting another 15 or 20 minutes in this whole shrink wrap fiasco, that I can purchase another bag. I was like why did you not offer me this earlier and went to the other side of the counter to purchase a bag.
There was a queue there again where some passengers were arguing about paying some 15 or 50 pounds to print a boarding pass as it was RyanAir’s policy to have printed boarding passes or they would charge there as well. Finally, I reached a staff named Samir, probably the only nice person at RyanAir. He told me there was no way for me to catch the flight as even if he purchased the luggage and they did get my bags in, I would not be able to make it through customs in time for the flight. As we were speaking, the check-in time closed – I was left with no choice but to purchase a new ticket for a later flight to a different city. We ended up changing our destination from Turin to Milan.
Pathetic and I would probably NEVERĀ recommend RyanAir to anyone. Unless you really want to try and risk everything.
**January update** After all this and 2 months later. I still have not heard back from RyanAir what they can do to compensate me OR at least refund me 1 of the flights.
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