{"id":233,"date":"2003-07-04T11:44:42","date_gmt":"2003-07-04T18:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=233"},"modified":"2003-07-04T11:44:42","modified_gmt":"2003-07-04T18:44:42","slug":"life-of-ryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2003\/07\/life-of-ryan\/","title":{"rendered":"Life of Ryan"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was inevitable that I eventually tried Ryanair<\/a>I wrote this post a few days ago, but have been unable to secure unfettered internet access since arriving in Ireland. Consumer broadband in Ireland is very new; cable broadband was introduced to Dublin a few days ago. I’m ready to bribe or kill someone to feed my 1-megabit habit. <\/span>. They’ve been proclaiming the second coming of aviation all over Christendom, and although their fares seemed too good to be true, I have always been for quantity over quality when it comes to flying. As I am summering in Ireland this year, the perfect opportunity presented itself; how fitting it would be to fly to Dublin on Ireland’s latest contribution to the cause of European civilization, I thoughtThis post is an homage to Felix’s penchant for blogging his suffering<\/a> on airline<\/a> flights<\/a>. It also gives me something to do while waiting for my connecting flight.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

How do they do it? I got an early hint as I boarded a Ryanair bus from central Stockholm to Skavsta airport, a hangar in a field 80 minutes to the south. Inside the terminal, a queue of third world proportions awaited me as two employees proceded to check in an entire 737. At the end of that queue I was told, first, that no, I could not check in my luggage here and expect to pick it up in Dublin, I would have to pick it up off a carousel in Prestwick, Scotland, and then check myself in again for my connecting flight to Dublin. Second, I was 13 kg over my luggage limit of 15kg. Never mind that I had dragged the same accoutrements all over Europe over the past year without hassle on BA. Never mind that a laptop, sturdy walking boots and the odd book are enough to put you halfway to their limit. I had to pay an extra $100 if I wanted to take my luggage with me.<\/p>\n

Oof. That pretty much erased any price advantage they had over the competition, and suddenly, my eye had become a lot more critical. At that price, let’s see how they stack up. Terminal: crap. Miles? Are you kidding? Window or aisle? No, it’s the Afro-Russian boarding method, where your ticket gets you a mandate to storm the plane for the best seats. In the event, the dash was over tarmac through a good 150m of steady rain.<\/p>\n

This free-for-all has one advantage that I thought of too late; it’s an evident incentive to chat up pretty women early, whom, it is hoped, you will invite to share your row of seats during the flight. In that sense it is a refreshing change from all that Lutheran predestination about whom one sits next to on traditional airlines. For once, it is not left up to the gods, who always conspire to have you sit next to bloated businessmen from Basingstoke rather than models from Milan.<\/p>\n

Except that the models from Milan do not as a rule fly to Prestwick.<\/p>\n

On Ryanair, you pay for your inflight food. This is fine by me; it minimizes waste, etc… But I did not expect, upon a request for a coke and a tuna sandwich, to be handed a can the size of a thimble and a triangle of bread that contained tuna safe for vegetarians (“It contains mayonnaise,” the air hostess<\/strike> stewardess<\/strike> flight attendant<\/strike> cabin crew member warned me.). For $10.<\/p>\n

At Prestwick, I waited for my luggage in a sputnik-green terminal straight out of those books of boring postcards you see in museum shoppesAgain, no internet access so no handy link to Amazon. How did I survive before 1995?<\/span>, then dragged it to the Ryanair check-in counter. Same luggage. Same weight. No problem this time.<\/p>\n

“Have these bags been in your possession at all times since you packed them?”<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

“No?!”<\/p>\n

“No, I gave them to Ryanair. I just got them back.”<\/p>\n

By the time I got onto my second Ryanair flight, however, I was mellowing. Obviously I was not their target customer. Around me sat pensioners visiting grandchildren and students upgrading from bus travel. Ryanair is a bus with wings, not a budget airline. From this perspective, it’s a perfectly reasonable proposition. Just don’t carry too many books to Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was inevitable that I eventually tried RyanairI wrote this post a few days ago, but have been unable to secure unfettered internet access since arriving in Ireland. Consumer broadband in Ireland is very new; cable broadband was introduced to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-3L","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}