Although it was all my own fault, I couldn’t help but stand there and curse Michael O’Leary. I am not a regular user of his airline, Ryanair, and I thought I’d booked my flight to Aarhus in Denmark carefully and correctly, paying an additional fee for everything that would make a journey from Stansted in the middle of the school holidays more comfortable – fast track this, priority that, extra legroom, seat selection, the lot.
It’s not that I’m a diva, although I admit that I do have those tendencies. It’s just that I find airports anxiety-inducing places, and I fully accept that I have to pay more to ease my stress.
But there I was, at the self-check-in terminal, and I was rejected by the machine. Although I’d booked a priority ticket, I’d mistaken “hold” bags for “cabin” bags, and I now had to pay an additional fee for each of our three bags. By the time we got back to Stansted, I’d paid a total of almost £250 in baggage charges, on top of all the extras to the actual cost of the flight for which I’d paid at the time of booking.
The blame was squarely on me, not on Mr O’Leary, and the only mitigation I had was my unfamiliarity with the Ryanair website and booking process. I know this is not a new story. O’Leary has pioneered and perfected the practice of additional charges in the 35 years that he has owned the airline, and anyone who uses Ryanair, and takes advantage of its low fares and excellent punctuality record, is well-versed in this custom, which, of course, has been replicated by other budget airlines.
