Ryanair cabin crew told to sell more scratchcards or face disciplinary action

synanthropic · Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:21 pm

AWACSooner wrote:
Bavd wrote:
Seriously, why do people fly this airline ? It is an accident waiting to happen....

Man...this one takes the cake for hyperbole in this thread.

Agreed, I briefly though this was an Allegiant thread

spencer32 · Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:26 pm

TC957 wrote:
Has anyone actually won anything buying an FR scratchcard or are they all duffs and losing tickets ?

Yes and no. This bloke won 10,000 euro on a Ryanair flight. He got so angry that they wouldn't pay up during the flight that he ate the winning ticket.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8539560.stm

SheikhDjibouti · Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:32 pm

spencer32 wrote:
TC957 wrote:
Has anyone actually won anything buying an FR scratchcard or are they all duffs and losing tickets ?

Yes and no. This bloke won 10,000 euro on a Ryanair flight. He got so angry that they wouldn't pay up during the flight that he ate the winning ticket.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8539560.stm

Because that is just so believable.

I am reminded of a train journey scam I ran for some years. Travelling between two open (unmanned) stations, I soon realised that the ticket inspector only visited each carriage periodically, and you could easily make ten journeys without being challenged to produce a valid ticket. The problem became one of what to do on the rare occasion you were caught out. The solution was to carry an out-of-date ticket, discarded by someone else, and when the inspector appeared, place it between my lips. As everybody around me offered their tickets for inspection, I would make a great show of checking all my pockets before suddenly "realising" where it was. By this time, the date-stamp was just a blur of wet ink and soggy cardboard. It worked for years.

This scratchcard guy is just copying my idea. :lol:

(with apologies to the late, great Dave Allen)

travelsonic · Mon Nov 27, 2017 5:06 pm

SheikhDjibouti wrote:
I am reminded of a train journey scam I ran for some years. Travelling between two open (unmanned) stations, I soon realised that the ticket inspector only visited each carriage periodically, and you could easily make ten journeys without being challenged to produce a valid ticket.

Happens a bit in the 'States too - I've heard stories of people going weeks, or even a month + on the same ticket before finally having it collected. Depending on routing, time of day, etc, you can also figure out where conductors go, at what point they stop collecting for a journey, etc.

inferno · Mon Nov 27, 2017 5:28 pm

You get issues like this with companies like Ryanair when you have runaway capitalism. If you like capitalism, deal with the consequences.

sas931 · Mon Nov 27, 2017 5:33 pm

The only person laughing here is MoL....all the way to the bank....
His staff...well not his staff, but the slave of th hiring companies...and they couldnt care...as others are mentioning...lot of you unemployeed youngsters in eastern and southern parts of Europe.
So the hiring companies has no problem in finding new slaves....
Unions might help them to get better working condition onboard, but FR dont want to talk to the unions....But a walk-out will hurt FR and if the union could get ground not to handle them, well.......it could turn into an avalanche.....and FR will suffer bigtime

gzm · Mon Nov 27, 2017 6:09 pm

Revlon-Yves-Avon-Neutrogena-Air should redefine their business strategy from scratch. Ouch!

Revelation · Mon Nov 27, 2017 6:49 pm

JAAlbert wrote:
Ryanair sells scratch cards? What are these, lottery tickets? I've now heard everything! Who would buy such a thing aboard an aircraft?

People who don't understand statistics very well.

Those who do understand the game is by definition rigged.

Breathe · Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:00 pm

TC957 wrote:
Has anyone actually won anything buying an FR scratchcard or are they all duffs and losing tickets ?

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/new ... 29776.html

Mr McKelvie alleges: “They [Ryanair] were selling them [cards] using the children’s hospice charity CHAS which, they said, benefitted from their sale.”

“On later investigation, I discovered that in 2013 they sold about 16 million euro worth of scratch cards and distributed 55,000 euro to charities, i.e. about 0.3%, or less than one cent for each 2 euro scratch card went to charity.”

In the post, Mr McKelvie also condemned the Dublin-based airline over the chances of winning the top prize of €1million euro from participating in the scratch

He claims: “There is also only one card per year with the chance of winning the million euro, but if you are lucky enough to get this card, you are then invited to choose from 125 envelopes, only one of which has a cheque for 1 million euro. The million euro will only be won once every 125 years.”

Responding to the claims, a spokesperson for Ryanair told The Independent: “The information in this Facebook post is entirely speculative and false. The author has no basis for his fanciful and inaccurate guestimates. “

“We don’t disclose how many scratch cards are sold, as this is commercially sensitive. However, over the past five years Ryanair has donated over €2m to almost 50 charities across 12 different EU countries. These charities cover a wide range of hospitals, schools, child welfare and sports club fundraisings. Over the last 12 months alone more than €500,000 was donated to charitable causes.

“Over the last five years the €1m top prize has not (yet) been won, but over €1,500,000 has been won by Ryanair customers in free cars and cash prizes.”

Shrewfly · Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:20 pm

Love them or hate them, sometimes they are the only practical option. They serve routes where the only alternatives are long trips to an alternate airport or connections.

Until flag carriers in many European countries start operations outside of their hub, Ryanair will have business. No amount of bad publicity will change that

Revelation · Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:51 pm

Breathe wrote:
Responding to the claims, a spokesperson for Ryanair told The Independent: “The information in this Facebook post is entirely speculative and false. The author has no basis for his fanciful and inaccurate guestimates. “

“We don’t disclose how many scratch cards are sold, as this is commercially sensitive. However, over the past five years Ryanair has donated over €2m to almost 50 charities across 12 different EU countries. These charities cover a wide range of hospitals, schools, child welfare and sports club fundraisings. Over the last 12 months alone more than €500,000 was donated to charitable causes.

“Over the last five years the €1m top prize has not (yet) been won, but over €1,500,000 has been won by Ryanair customers in free cars and cash prizes.”

So much double-speak in this quote.

They tell you how much they donate to charities but never say that amount is as a result of the scratch cards.

They go on to say how much has been won by customers but don't give any context to the number because that is "commercially sensitive".

We live in a world where corporations feed us bullshit and we thank them for their generous gift of fertilizer.

A320FlyGuy · Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:52 pm

It really is a sad state of affairs that a pathetic excuse of an airline like Ryanair is allowed to operate and treat employees like garbage and a decent airline such as Monarch is allowed to go down the toilet. I know that there were a lot of reasons for the downfall of Monarch, but when you see a lousy airline like Ryanair continue to fly, it really makes you question things.

BobPatterson · Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:01 pm

Quoting from the article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/ ... atchcards/

"The airline did not respond to specific details of the article but said that its cabin crew earn up to €40,000 (£35,500) a year and “enjoy great terms and conditions including job security... a legal max of 900 flight hours per annum... [and] great sales commissions”. [emphasis mine]

We are not told what the sales commission is. Does anyone know?

It seems to me that if sales are incentivized by superior commission payments, the airline will have little to complain about.

UpNAWAy · Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:04 pm

Let the market sort it out. If they are a horrible place to work people will not work there. If customers don't like it either they will not fly.

UpNAWAy · Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:05 pm

A320FlyGuy wrote:
It really is a sad state of affairs that a pathetic excuse of an airline like Ryanair is allowed to operate and treat employees like garbage and a decent airline such as Monarch is allowed to go down the toilet. I know that there were a lot of reasons for the downfall of Monarch, but when you see a lousy airline like Ryanair continue to fly, it really makes you question things.

That is way more a reflection on what airline customers want than anything else.

SheikhDjibouti · Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:08 pm

Breathe wrote:
Responding to the claims, a spokesperson for Ryanair told The Independent:
“We don’t disclose how many scratch cards are sold, as this is commercially sensitive."

Hopefully this lottery is audited by somebody somewhere. Or does it take place in international airspace and conveniently escapes proper scrutiny?

“Over the last five years the €1m top prize has not (yet) been won, but over €1,500,000 has been won by Ryanair customers in free cars and cash prizes.”

Now that is very interesting.
€1.5m over 5 years = €300,000 per year in payouts.
So, if someone was to collect the €1m jackpot, that would really put a dent in those annual figures.
Standard procedure here would be for Ryanair to take out insurance against a win happening.

The same shenanigans happened with the UK daily papers a few decades back. First off, The Daily Scum offered a free daily lottery with a chance to win a cool £1million. Within 48 hours, three other daily papers were shamelessly copying them. Several weeks later, with lottery fever gripping the UK, a mathematician calculated the odds of anyone winning as 1 in 5,000. ...... years. :rotfl:

That's the total odds for everyone who was playing, assuming they played every day, from now until eternity. Basically the £1million jackpot was never, ever going to happen.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Blimpie · Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:43 pm

travelsonic wrote:
SheikhDjibouti wrote:
I am reminded of a train journey scam I ran for some years. Travelling between two open (unmanned) stations, I soon realised that the ticket inspector only visited each carriage periodically, and you could easily make ten journeys without being challenged to produce a valid ticket.

Happens a bit in the 'States too - I've heard stories of people going weeks, or even a month + on the same ticket before finally having it collected. Depending on routing, time of day, etc, you can also figure out where conductors go, at what point they stop collecting for a journey, etc.

Then again in the states occasionally you get conductors who seethe same faces every day, don't care, or just assume if you do not present them a ticket that they just assume you're a weekly/monthly pass holder.

Blimpie · Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:48 pm

UpNAWAy wrote:
Let the market sort it out. If they are a horrible place to work people will not work there. If customers don't like it either they will not fly.

I think that is part of the problem though. It sounds like a large portion of these guys are temps or rather contracted staff. I would suppose a lot of these guys likely have few or limited outlets to go to. Frankly, with all the EU labor laws, I'm surprised the airline can use and abuse contracted staff in this manner for such a critical role.

Not going to lie, I'm a free market, pro-capitalist libertarian, but the more I hear about Ryanair, and how many of the ULCC operate on both sides of the pond so to speak, I almost wish a government would start slapping them around a little just so there can be a basic amount of human dignity left in the industry. (Gawd, I felt myself throw up a little typing that, and I think my 401k flagged me.)

kjeld0d · Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:11 pm

SomebodyInTLS wrote:
kjeld0d wrote:
If you can only afford flights on an airline that abuses its staff, you can't really afford to fly; you are just lying to yourself.
The same goes with holidays to 'tourism factories'. Have some self-respect!

There's a big difference between "can afford" and "choose not to waste money". If the airline provides the service that you want at a far cheaper price than other airlines then have some respect for your wallet!

(I have never used Ryanair, by the way, and I would treat them with caution given what happens when flights get delayed or cancelled - but if they were half the price of other options next time I'm booking around Europe then I would be stupid to ignore them!)

When you see a bunch of airlines providing a service at a certain price, and then you see ryanair's price, you know the difference is being squeezed from all over. One would have to expect that their staff wouldn't be the nicest. Now this scratchcard nonsense...at some point a regulator is going to step in and say "no, you are there primarily for safety, not to sell lottery." I am by no means a wealthy person, but I could never enjoy a flight or vacation knowing staff were being treated poorly.

bigjku wrote:
kjeld0d wrote:
If you can only afford flights on an airline that abuses its staff, you can't really afford to fly; you are just lying to yourself.
The same goes with holidays to 'tourism factories'. Have some self-respect!

Stay home poor people. Flying and leisure are not for you. How dare you elect to spend your money on services a company elected to provide with employees that elected to work there.

I am with you. These customers really are monsters.

Slavery put tea and sugar in cups during the industrial revolution. Same situation here --is up to us as consumers to say that we aren't going to patronize companies that abuse their staff. If that means one less vacation, I'll gladly accept that.

CobaltScar · Tue Nov 28, 2017 4:34 am

StudiodeKadent wrote:
CobaltScar wrote:
The sooner the FAs of this airline unionize, the better.

Their entire business model requires cheap labor.

BINGO.

And the sooner they unionize, the sooner they either a) have to pay more and thus change their business model or b) collapse and get bought out by a more traditional airline that already pays more.

Why do you think all the pilot boards of the smaller U.S. airlines collectively pray their own companies get bought out on a daily basis? In a seniority based industry, every new start up is a scab.

vhtje · Tue Nov 28, 2017 10:28 am

B777LRF wrote:
Just to make it clear: Ryanair will claim they are not their employees, albeit they are contracted to devote all their working hours to them. That doesn't stop them from issuing these highly offensive mails, via the contracting agency, to their 'non-employees'.

One day that train is going to come to a screeching halt, and I for one will be standing on the sidelines cheering when it does.

They are the bane of civil aviation, a scamming outfit who can only survive for as long as they get away with shafting their employees.

+1.

But there is good news on the horizon. It looks like UK Employment Law may soon catch up with Ryanair (and others who do not employe their employees directly) - the decision a couple of weeks ago in the Employment Tribunal regarding Uber will have an impact on how these arm's length contracts work, at least in respect to workers' rights. It looks like the "employer" will be deemed to be the entity that has the control over the workers' conditions, not simply the entity that pays employees' wages. Expect changes in the law to clarify and solidify this ruling, and when that happens, Ryanair et al will be force to change.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/10/uber-loses-appeal-employment-rights-workers

Of course, this would only effect UK-based employees. Exactly how Ryanair will react to any change in UK Employment law remains to be seen.

B777LRF · Thu Nov 30, 2017 1:22 pm

vhtje wrote:
But there is good news on the horizon. It looks like UK Employment Law may soon catch up with Ryanair (and others who do not employe their employees directly) - the decision a couple of weeks ago in the Employment Tribunal regarding Uber will have an impact on how these arm's length contracts work, at least in respect to workers' rights. It looks like the "employer" will be deemed to be the entity that has the control over the workers' conditions, not simply the entity that pays employees' wages. Expect changes in the law to clarify and solidify this ruling, and when that happens, Ryanair et al will be force to change.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/10/uber-loses-appeal-employment-rights-workers

Of course, this would only effect UK-based employees. Exactly how Ryanair will react to any change in UK Employment law remains to be seen.

The UK dispute is but the latest in a long row of suits and cases Ryanair have lost. The also lost the right claiming any dispute shall be settled in an Irish court, when the ECJ ruled that illegal and said it should be handled locally, just as they've lost cases in Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Norway. In each case, however, Ryanair says they either disagree or don't care and will not make any changes.

These are some of the many reasons why Ryanair has a bigger legal than customer service department. No, I kid you not.

One has a strong hope that, sooner or later, they'll be slapped down hard legally and will either change their ways or be heavily curtailed in their operations. No crew = no airline.

727200 · Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:48 pm

Whoa, so much hate against Ryanair on this board. In capitalistic society people have a choice, either purchase a ticket and fly them or don't purchase and NOT fly them. Very simple. But, reality is people want it both ways and that's not going to happen.

Dominion301 · Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:50 pm

JAAlbert wrote:
CRJ900 wrote:
JAAlbert wrote:
Ryanair sells scratch cards? What are these, lottery tickets? I've now heard everything! Who would buy such a thing aboard an aircraft?

Scratch cards are sold by the thousands onboard Thomas Cook aircraft. I flew with them on charter flights a few months ago and passengers were crazy about buying them and several passengers won new cards. Back in the day, Sterling Airlines also sold HEAPS of scratch cards - lots of money in the till.

Passengers will buy everything if you announce it properly on the PA.

Unbelievable!

I guess that flight attendant better get busy and hawk those scratch cards then!

This is a prime example as to why unions are "horrible, useless things" (to management). :banghead:

StuckinCMHland · Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:37 pm

727200 wrote:
Whoa, so much hate against Ryanair on this board. In capitalistic society people have a choice, either purchase a ticket and fly them or don't purchase and NOT fly them. Very simple. But, reality is people want it both ways and that's not going to happen.

Great post! A big part of the problem is that people only look at their wallets instead of informing themselves about who they are spending their money with. Capitalism includes the idea that $$$ is not the only measure to determine what a person buys. Since I live in the US and not Europe I do not have a chance to fly Ryanair, but if I did I wouldn't do it, even if the alternatives are more expensive or more time consuming. But I have also looked at LCC's and/or ULCC's in the US for travel and I have no interest in flying them.

albertocsc · Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:56 pm

The scratchcards game is easy: there are two parts:
- with one scratchy part you need to have three of any figure to win a car or cash prizes, directly.
- with the other part, you can see if you enter a draw for the one million euro. if you do, you need to register for the annual draw. all entrants are invited to this annual event, and one of them wins the one million euro.

sevenair · Thu Nov 30, 2017 7:20 pm

Something's happened. I tried them early this year. I thought it was great. Friendly staff, no hard sell, no crew standing in the aisle witch a handful of scratch cards when the PA for them was made (indignifying), no constant PAs, no sell sell sell. Sadly I did the same route, same flight time last week and the flight had all of these things. There was constant pressure to buy. It worked as we spent over £50 onboard.

Jayafe · Fri Dec 01, 2017 5:53 pm

sevenair wrote:
There was constant pressure to buy. It worked as we spent over £50 onboard.

Pressure? Where they pointing a gun or a knife to you? Don’t blame offer for your compulsive expenses. It’s an easy word: “no”

sevenair · Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:23 pm

Not that I have to justify how I spend my money buy we had already decided most of what to buy before we boarded but incessant PAs certainly help and the crew were aggressively upselling, cross selling and quite pushy too with all the passengers. In fact, I did say 'no' when I bought a credit card holder and was offered a much overpriced travel adapter to complement my purchase.

The food onboard is amongst the most expensive of all the airlines I fly so its easy to spend a lot more just by buying a few things. That was not my issue. The issue was the constant PAs and lights on full bright for an entire 3hr20 flight.

devron · Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:02 pm

I just buy a coffee, maybe two.

european742 · Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:30 pm

My view on Ryanair is I've flown them for many years. Yes they are cheap but they get you from point A to point B and if their schedule fitted what I was looking for, I went for them. People moan about the "hidden extras" but they are anything but hidden and are optional and the majority of complaints are from people who don't follow the online check-in policy, selects 0 check-in bags and then turn up with one or bring a cabin bag larger than the allowance all of which they agreed to at the time of booking but because they broke their end of the agreement, they expect Ryanair to break theirs.

This all changed when I flew to Bergerac for a wedding, half the party flew from Southampton with Flybe (myself included) and the rest came from Stansted with Ryanair. On the way home their flight was cancelled because of the pilot shortage, this being the first day of it. We were in a very remote place in France and had no signal to rebook online or phone them. We got to the airport and they were told, " we will refund you and you'll have to make your own way back" and everyone was around 400€ out of pocket. So basically when things go wrong, they wash their hands of you.

Then about this topic I have a friend who works for them and asked if this is true, he said yes and really wants to find another job.

I also found out these charity scratchcards, only 10% goes to charity. I am not sure how many exactly they sold. They are sold at 2€ each and Ryanair carries about 120 million passengers a year, they donated 100,000€ to charity. I highly doubt they sold only 50,000 scratchcards out of 120,000,000 people.

The other thing is Ryanair don't care if staff leave all the time. Cabin crew is a VERY sought after job so many people will join to get their foot in the door and everyone pays for their training so what loss is it to Ryanair?

As a result of how they treat passengers in disruption and how they treat their crew, i will only fly with them as a last resort.

PPVLC · Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:44 am

I'm baffled to see people defending nasty actions of employers. is it some sort of "ruthless CEO syndrome"? kind of "if you think like them you're one of them"?

Varsity1 · Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:41 am

PPVLC wrote:
I'm baffled to see people defending nasty actions of employers. is it some sort of "ruthless CEO syndrome"? kind of "if you think like them you're one of them"?

unfortunately yes.

PatrickZ80 · Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:11 pm

sevenair wrote:
Something's happened. I tried them early this year. I thought it was great. Friendly staff, no hard sell, no crew standing in the aisle witch a handful of scratch cards when the PA for them was made (indignifying), no constant PAs, no sell sell sell. Sadly I did the same route, same flight time last week and the flight had all of these things. There was constant pressure to buy. It worked as we spent over £50 onboard.

That's not my experience. I've flown them a few months ago and of course they were offering all those items, but it didn't feel like pressure to me. I bought a drink and snack on board and that was it, but I would have bought that anyway. In all of my flights with them I've never bought a single scratchcard. The only duty-free item I ever bought on board was a pack of playing cards, that was just fun to have.

PPVLC wrote:
I'm baffled to see people defending nasty actions of employers. is it some sort of "ruthless CEO syndrome"? kind of "if you think like them you're one of them"?

I'm not defending them, but I'm not exaggerating either like some people here are. They're acting like it's the worst in the world. I admit that it's not right, but it's only a minor issue. For me, it's no reason to avoid Ryanair.

seahawk · Sat Dec 02, 2017 1:28 pm

Selling items is part of the job of the FAs at any airline. I see no problem in firing the under performers and using pressure to increase the sales, every retail chain does this.

Callbell · Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:15 pm

seahawk wrote:
Selling items is part of the job of the FAs at any airline. I see no problem in firing the under performers and using pressure to increase the sales, every retail chain does this.

But they aren’t a retail chain and the crew have a safety critical role. There are better ways to motivate and increase sales. Using current tactics, fear of being fired, only getting rosters week by week etc distracts crew from their safety function.

seahawk · Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:18 pm

Callbell wrote:
seahawk wrote:
Selling items is part of the job of the FAs at any airline. I see no problem in firing the under performers and using pressure to increase the sales, every retail chain does this.

But they aren’t a retail chain and the crew have a safety critical role. There are better ways to motivate and increase sales. Using current tactics, fear of being fired, only getting rosters week by week etc distracts crew from their safety function.

Every retail chain trains their employees to safely evacuate themselves and the customers from the building if needed. In the end they are nothing but flying sales persons.

sevenair · Sat Dec 02, 2017 7:49 pm

PatrickZ80 wrote:
sevenair wrote:
Something's happened. I tried them early this year. I thought it was great. Friendly staff, no hard sell, no crew standing in the aisle witch a handful of scratch cards when the PA for them was made (indignifying), no constant PAs, no sell sell sell. Sadly I did the same route, same flight time last week and the flight had all of these things. There was constant pressure to buy. It worked as we spent over £50 onboard.

That's not my experience. I've flown them a few months ago and of course they were offering all those items, but it didn't feel like pressure to me. I bought a drink and snack on board and that was it, but I would have bought that anyway. In all of my flights with them I've never bought a single scratchcard. The only duty-free item I ever bought on board was a pack of playing cards, that was just fun to have.

PPVLC wrote:
I'm baffled to see people defending nasty actions of employers. is it some sort of "ruthless CEO syndrome"? kind of "if you think like them you're one of them"?

I'm not defending them, but I'm not exaggerating either like some people here are. They're acting like it's the worst in the world. I admit that it's not right, but it's only a minor issue. For me, it's no reason to avoid Ryanair.

Something changed. Same route, same times. Last time when Ryanair were being 'nice' and Always Getting Better were being pushed, it was a fairly relaxed atmosphere onboard. Last week it was a completely different affair. One can only assume that there is pressure coming from base management specifically at that base. Perhaps it's been identified as an underperforming base in terms of sales.

SCQ83 · Sat Dec 02, 2017 8:02 pm

I have flown Ryanair 33 times so far this year (that is a too much maybe!.. but so far not a single delay or cancelation) and I also noticed that in the last few months they are more insistent (no matter the base; I have flown UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Cyprus, Romania, Germany... -based planes). specially with the scratch cards and the duty free. Now they would be talking on the speaker for 5 minutes about how they have this Calvin Klein perfume for 40 EUR that in shops will cost you 60 EUR. I haven't noticed any difference with trying to sell more coffee / food though.

Does it bother me? Not at all, that is why I put my headphones on and everybody is happy with it.

devron wrote:
I just buy a coffee, maybe two.

I find Ryanair coffee quite good (Lavazza). I would say it is among the best you can find in any carrier. Sometimes if the only option at the airport is some dodgy cafe with who knows what or another Starbucks I would wait for the flight to buy it on board. It is 3.00 EUR but in many airports a coffee is already more expensive than that.

Heinkel · Sat Dec 02, 2017 8:37 pm

Thanks to A-Net we know the typical fuel consumption per hour per seat for a B737. Have you ever compared the price of the Jet A1 per seat with the base price of a Ryanair ticket?

If you take the base price of a ticket for a typical Ryanair flight, booked early and with no extras, this base price won't even pay the Jet A1 for that seat for the flight even at 100% load factor. And we all know, that fuel is an important part but there are many more things which must be paid to make an a/c fly and run an airline.

Miracles don't happen and even Ryanair crews don't work for free and Boeing don't give away their 737s for free.

So it is crystal clear, that when the base price doesn't even pay the fuel, Ryanair can only survive, when the average passenger spends a lot of extra money before and during his flight. This strange scratch card lottery is one of these extra revenue sources. Many others were discussed here before.

When I'm travelling, I don't want to feel like sitting in a sales event. I've never travelled with Ryanair and I hope I'll never have to do that in future.

PatrickZ80 · Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:54 pm

Heinkel wrote:
Thanks to A-Net we know the typical fuel consumption per hour per seat for a B737. Have you ever compared the price of the Jet A1 per seat with the base price of a Ryanair ticket?

If you take the base price of a ticket for a typical Ryanair flight, booked early and with no extras, this base price won't even pay the Jet A1 for that seat for the flight even at 100% load factor. And we all know, that fuel is an important part but there are many more things which must be paid to make an a/c fly and run an airline.

Miracles don't happen and even Ryanair crews don't work for free and Boeing don't give away their 737s for free.

So it is crystal clear, that when the base price doesn't even pay the fuel, Ryanair can only survive, when the average passenger spends a lot of extra money before and during his flight. This strange scratch card lottery is one of these extra revenue sources. Many others were discussed here before.

When I'm travelling, I don't want to feel like sitting in a sales event. I've never travelled with Ryanair and I hope I'll never have to do that in future.

But not every seat is that cheap. As the plane gets filled, the seat price goes up. The average fare is enough to pay for the fuel and other things. The trick is that most seats are sold below average, only there's a very steep curve in the end for the last seats. They're mostly more expensive than on other carriers, but if you need to fly at the very last moment and there's no other option you'll be happy to take them.

And of course Ryanair does have a lot of other sources of income. I've once been told that at Weeze airport Ryanair owns the long term parking lot. A small portion of the parking income goes to the airport for maintenance, the rest is for Ryanair.

PanHAM · Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:51 am

seahawk wrote:
Selling items is part of the job of the FAs at any airline. I see no problem in firing the under performers and using pressure to increase the sales, every retail chain does this.

Yes, but retail chains usuallly don't have a captive audience and that is exactly what makes the difference. The only other Location that would be comparable is jail. Usually the captivity with FR does not last much longer than 2 to 3 hours. Anyway, the last item I'd buy on a flight would be a scratch Card.

seahawk · Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:07 am

PanHAM wrote:
seahawk wrote:
Selling items is part of the job of the FAs at any airline. I see no problem in firing the under performers and using pressure to increase the sales, every retail chain does this.

Yes, but retail chains usuallly don't have a captive audience and that is exactly what makes the difference. The only other Location that would be comparable is jail. Usually the captivity with FR does not last much longer than 2 to 3 hours. Anyway, the last item I'd buy on a flight would be a scratch Card.

You know what you sign-up for when buying the ticket.

Faro · Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:01 am

What can cabin crew do beyond flashing a big Pan Am smile and asking passengers whether they would like to be relieved of some cash in exchange for (usually) non-necessary goods?...

And then again they can't do that with every passenger and every available product...what do they want, for cabin crew to flirt with pax to stimulate their purchasing appetites?...

If they want high-selling cabin crew they should put them on ad hoc marketing skills courses specifically tailored to intensively selling products on airliners...

Faro

PanHAM · Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:31 am

I don't fly with them, seahawk and I doubt that everyone in that captive audience knwos, What is next, Slot machines and pole dancing?

SheikhDjibouti · Mon Dec 04, 2017 2:02 pm

seahawk wrote:
You know what you sign-up for when buying the ticket.

Correction; YOU know what you sign up for when buying the ticket. Lot's of people don't.
Next time, try using the perpendicular pronoun... "I"

Galwayman · Tue Dec 05, 2017 7:22 pm

There's no story here , nobody's actually been fired or disciplined and FR cabin crew are still miles ahead of BA trashy mixed fleet in behaviour and performance .

SheikhDjibouti · Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:25 pm

Galwayman wrote:
There's no story here , nobody's actually been fired or disciplined and FR cabin crew are still miles ahead of BA trashy mixed fleet in behaviour and performance .

Is it yerself there Michael? And how are the rest of the O'Leary's this fine day?

Revelation · Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:55 pm

european742 wrote:
I also found out these charity scratchcards, only 10% goes to charity. I am not sure how many exactly they sold. They are sold at 2€ each and Ryanair carries about 120 million passengers a year, they donated 100,000€ to charity. I highly doubt they sold only 50,000 scratchcards out of 120,000,000 people.

Reminds me of:

geologyrocks · Wed Dec 06, 2017 12:02 am

Here's my opinion, for the very little that it is worth:

1) Yes, the main reason why a flight attendant there is for safety. With that being said, let's face what we all know...flying is incredibly safe and we all know that the chances of being involved in an evacuation are probably 4x worse than the chances of winning the biggest jackpot on that scratchcard.

2) No, it's not retail. However, considering that they are going to charge you for anything and everything, the FA's on airlines like Ryanair are somewhat different from traditional flight attendants. I don't really consider cashiers to be in sales (after all, you've already decided that you're going to purchase the items you've brought to them) yet most are tied to some kind of bonus or punishment system based on how many they get to apply for a credit card or sell an extended warranty.

3) There is no excuse for not knowing how this airline is. I think it's safe to say that the overwhelming majority are buying online (That's all airlines these days but I would imagine that it's exceptionally high when you charge 50 Euros to book over the phone). In 2017 when everyone wants to write a review about something, it's no secret what you're getting into or at least no excuse not to know. At the very least, common sense should tell you that they're not going to make money on a $10 ticket.

4) Surviving on ancillary revenue is nothing new. I personally hate sales...passionately hate it. In a previous life, I was a branch manager for a rental car company. I can guarantee you that ancillary revenue is what is needed to survive in that industry...especially off airport. Ain't nobody making money off of just the base rates. I don't care if you were a President's Circle member -- I'd drop you in a heartbeat to go take care of someone that is about to rent their only car for the entire year if you told me they'll upgrade and buy the insurance. That's where the money is.

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