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PASSENGERS HOPING to fly with Ryanair this weekend have been urged to check in for their flights as soon as possible, ahead of a scheduled downtime period for the airline’s website.
The airline this afternoon said its website would be taken offline for extended periods over the weekend in order to allow for maintenance and improvement works, meaning passengers will not be able to check in online for those periods.
The online checkin facility will be disabled from 4pm on Friday afternoon until 12pm on Sunday lunchtime – meaning passengers intending to fly at the weekend will have to check in before Friday afternoon.
Passengers who are unable to check in online will have to do in person at the airport – and be hit with a €60 or £60 fee for doing so.
Anyone with bookings for flights this weekend – which could include travellers to the Heineken Cup final in London, and the UEFA Champions’ League final in Munich – can check in for their flights now using the Manage My Booking facility.
“Ryanair wishes to apologise to all passengers who may be affected by our website closure, which is unavoidable in order to upgrade the www.ryanair.com website,” the airline said.
The airline said the updated website, when completed, would work three times faster, and also offer SMS text alerts to inform passengers of delays to their flights.
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€60 fee for not been able to check in online. That’s a bit steep, so much for Europe’s cheapest airline!
Here’s a mad idea but considering it’s Ryan Air that is creating this problem, why don’t they do free check in at the airport for as long as the website is down. Why should they benefit financially from a situation they are causing.
Hats off too Michael for his success.
But thankfully he has not achieved a monopoly as yet.
The thought of Michael O’Leary being in a situation of full control over mainline aviation companies in Ireland is a worrying thought.
Aer Lingus might not be as competitive but for a few Euros more I will always choose them over Ryan Air.
My son got done for this recently, we studiously avoid flying with them ever since, Aer Lingus is not much more expensive when booked far enough in advance, and far more civilised!!!
Also you have to add
€12 online check in fee, €4 EU 261 Levy, €0.50 ETS Levy, €50 to check a bag in thats up to 15kg, €70 for 20kg.
€10 Priority Boarding, €12 Administration fee. All that is on top of the Fare and Taxes. €0.95 cents a minute if you call to book.
They are cheap if you play your cards right. 30 euro return flight from shannon to london for a weekend a couple months back. Just had hand luggage, packed what i needed and no more. Some people can never be pleased.
Cheap to London Shaun, that’s about it.
Mark I regularly go Dublin-East Mids with them to visit home and have never paid more than €60 return other than at Christmas, no alternative airline to be fair but I never have a problem with them!
Ok cheap between Dublin/Ireland and th UK. If you go from Dublin to London on a €30 fare you then have to buy a rail ticket for £30. I travel with Aerlingus to Heathrow most times, like Ryanair if you book in advance you can get a ticket for €50 then you can get a travelcard for the tube £8.50 that will do you for the day on the tube. It works out the same. If you travel to Europe Aerlingus can be cheaper.
Surely they should drop the charge for the Two days. You can’t take down a website, and charge people for not being able to use it. I’d be on to consumer rights if I was forced to pay that.
Aer Lingus, all the way!
Typical Oleary stunt to start this work over the week end when its busiest, could have done on a tues to thurs when volumes are less and minimum disruption to passengers , should be intresting to see how many people get stung with this charge over the week end after all its free money for doing 5 mins work
How is this not illegal? It is actually robbing people!
The E.U say the Administration fee they charge each customer (€12) is illegal, its going through the courts now, hopefully by the end of summer it will be abolished, but O’ Leary will just increase another levy he charges to cover his losses
How can they not have a mirror site? Wouldn’t have been hard to set up. This stinks of a scam to me.
Can’t stand the man! He’s rude, ignorant and arrogant. This is stealing, especially from people that are not computer literate and the people that don’t use or have a computer of their own.
It’s mean and it’s rubbish. How is it that other airlines don’t use this excuse? I never fly Ryanair, can’t stand the bullshit so called savings. Sure, fly into the arsehole of nowhere airport and then pay a ton to get to where you really want to be.
Rip off. Before anyone starts telling me, ‘well, he’s a good businessman and is loaded’, bull, don’t like his business ethics or the way he gets rich.
How is it stealing? It’s in there terms that if you don’t check in online you pay the fee. Theres no excuse for not being checked in on time. It’s been all over the radio all day, all over social media, probably in all the papers tomorrow and I would imagine its was on most tv channels today. Every person booked on a Ryanair flight has been emailed in advance. I fly with them regularly. It saves me a fortune. I just play by the rules. As for Michael O’Leary, I think hes excellent. It’s a pit there isn’t more like him
Also, I assume they’ve sent emails to everyone with flights booked?
Yes they did
Ryanair are no longer a low fares airline. Their staff are extremely rude and unprofessional . I have not travelled with Ryanair for a number if years as I had do many bad experiences with them. People should vote with their feet and boycott the airline.
No longer a low fares airline? That is a ridicules comment. As for their staff, you get what you pay for. If you want to be pampered you should fly with BA, if you want to keep as much money in you pocket as possible fly with Ryanair.
Jimmy, you are wrong on so many levels. No, they are not a low fares airline anymore. The only places you can fly to with them cheaply these days are various UK cities and possibly Brussels. Nothing too exotic. Flights to Spain, Italy, etc are about the same as Aer Lingus and I know which one I’d choose of the 2. We are not asking to be “pampered”, just a smile or a hello when getting on the plane would suffice. If you want a stressful day’s packing and flying, trying to get your €40 baggage under a measly 15kg, squeezing your duty-free shopping and your handbag (and even your jumper that you decided to take off before getting onto the plane) into your carry-on luggage, and praying that your carry-on isn’t 1cm too long or wide to bring into the cain then go ahead and fly with Ryanair.
I don’t have a lot of hates in my life but I honestly despise Michael O’ Leary! My happiest moment was with the announcement of aer lingus from Aberdeen to Dublin! Down with Swine Air!
Ryanair’s website goes down for most of the week end and passenger get penalised for this?? Why, just for once , don’t they waive this extortionate check in fee and generate some good will with the customers that are keeping Mr. O’Leary in the lifestyle that he has become accustomed to. Just this once Mick, do something nice for your customers. It’ll make you feel good & who knows, you might get a lot of ‘good will’ publicity – for a change.
Thats terrible what if you are not near a computer and you didn’t know the website would be down. Thats not the customers fault. This airline complains about landing fees in Ireland are to high, even though they are amongst the lowest in europe. And the same airline has so many add-ons to the ticket. The fare can increase by 50%
Mark
Yes their false economy really, like cheap toilet rolls and washing up liquid!!!
I hate Ryan Air
It’s all over the news facebook and twitter so if you get ‘stung’ its kind of your own fault.
What if you are stuck in the desert? lol
Contrary to popular belief not everyone is on Facebook or Twitter Rob. I do think it is another one of Mr. O’Leary’s money grabbing stunts and the first of many to come I would say. Roll on the summer exodus!
not everyone is on Facebook or twitter .
Ah yes. Facebook & Twitter – pillars of modern communication. Guess us over-25s watching An Nuacht will just have to cough up €60!
Don’t Know why you are all moaning about not knowing because your not on FB or twitter… You just read about it here. I do think that the fee should be waved this weekend though.
I’ve never had a problem with Ryanair and I’ve travelled with them a lot over the years. We’re flying into frankfurt Hahn next month as we’re visiting family in Luxembourg and we got the flights for €35.00 each which is brilliant. They have given people plenty of notice about the website being down this weekend so people shouldn’t really be caught out but I do think that they should offer free check in at the airport this weekend for those who do get caught out.
Michael O’leary, he’d rob the eyes out of your head!
As well as the sh**e out your toilet and charge you to clean it!!
And come back for the second one
The website is mission critical for Ryanair.
I can’t believe they have no backup strategy in place. That stinks of amateurism.
Quite right, as a software engineer I know they’d have to have a really bad system design if they need to bring down the website at all nevermind for a day or two. Guess they cheap out on software developers.
I heard that the original website was designed by 2 students who got paid under 1 k for their efforts.
So if that was the starting point for a professional website, i can only imagine what continues today. No other major company would have such a long downtime unless influenced by board room chart of downtime = profit.
They’ve given plenty of notice. You can check in online 2 weeks in advance at this stage.
They’re not a charity at the end of the day and it’s about time people realised how to use their service.
If you don’t like them, don’t use them. We’d be worse off without them.
If they’re not a charity, neither are the customers they treat unfairly or rudely. And so your point is a good one – we do all have the right, as consumers, to make different travel choices.
Billy. Could they tell me if my London granny was going to die two weeks in advance?
Thankfully you can now book DUB-LHR with BA again as they have taken over BMI. Rtn for under 100euro which when you think about it isn’t bad. BMI already offered free bags in the hold but according to http://www.britishairways.com/travel/bmi-information-news-hub/public/en_ie they will be offering BA service very soon – i.e free food and drink. So for under 100 are talking bags, food & drink and no booking or credit card fees. Dosen’t a bag on Ryainair cost about that return? Also Talk of all ex-BMI flights moving to T5 soon which can only be a bonus.
I find it difficult to believe that there will be free food and drink on those flights, as they are so short, but I hope you’re right!
I booked a ticket with BMI 2 months ago, i travel from Heathrow- Dublin in 4 weeks i paid £54 return. I was in Dublin last week and i saw a BA plane at the airport. Aerlingus code share with BA, i hope BA dont drop the BMI service from Dublin to Heathrow.
Typical Ireland ….hate Ryanair / love Lidl
Your dead right, the Irish love to hate they’re own, shower of begrudgers, money talks and bulls**t walks, cheap speaks volumes in these times
The difference there is customer service. Lidl is not scared to provide it, and gives better value for money as a result.
Alot of the time you cannot afford irish prices. I buy Irish always if i can afford it sometimes i have to go for the cheaper options.
I fear for what new algorithm they’re putting on their site as part of “maintenance” :D
I’d be interested to see how many people here book flights with ryan air while always giving out about them. you can check in 14 days before the flight so no excuse really not to be checked in before the site goes down
O Leary you piece of dog shite
I fail to see how puerile vulgar comments like this and a few more earlier contribute usefully to the topic.
If Ryanair upsets you to that extent, then move on and don’t fly with them. You do have a choice which, incidentally, you didn’t have in the old duopoly days.
Everybody wake up and smell the coffee, This is an engineered publicity stunt in the making.
O Leary will pop up on the news or radio on Wednesday and promise free check in over the period thus generating self appreciating publicity, ‘coz we’re sound like that’.
And we are all providing a free viral marketing launch pad by chatting about it. They won’t even spend a penny. Genius.
there like ronseal “they do exactly what it says on the sight ” no frills no thrills just cheap flights, that’s why we love and use them so much … o Leary is a legend, if there was no unions in this country we’d be alot better off!!!!
Is this legal?? Surely this can be brought up against a national watchdog, or similar? Disgusting behavior, from an embarrassment of an airline! I would rather eat my money then give it to this pirate.
He would have us naked if he could, with just one bag on the plane.
What’s wrong with doing these upgrades in the middle of the night when Internet traffic is low??
Moaning is your national sport, isn’t it?
Freedom is a good thing, dont they moan in Poznań, people only moan in this country when they get a bad service, the worst is from rude cabin crew, that dont know how to smile most of them have no customer service skills. Bag training i guess. And then you cannot understand what they say over the intercom.
I don’t see what your problems is with Lyan Air, do it they exactly as on the tin say!!
I always use ryanair without a problem. I used aer lingus once and what a shambles it was. Any letters to their customer service were totally ignored, so I voted with my feet and wont use them again. Rubbish excuse for an airline!
I’m flying out to-morrow morning and coming back the next day. This article tells me the Ryanair site will be disrupted from 4PM Friday till Sunday. I’m being prevented from logging in to print out my check-in NOW. That means I’ll be screwed for 60 EURO each way, even though Ryanair say you can check in up to 4 hours before your flight. What do I do? Tell the Gardai?, Tell the DPP? Tell the Journal? HELP somebody!! Michael, I love your airline, well, er almost.
This really isn’t acceptable. They surely must have some contingency plan in the event that their main website went down unexpectedly. Surely they could put that contingency plan into effect for the weekend. At the very least they could have provided a minimum alternative site purely for check-in purposes.
Just strikes me as more of Ryanair’s contempt for their customers that they just expect people to put up with poor service. And clearly since people do accept it they know they can get away with it.
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