Open letter to Tim Jeans, marketing manager of Ryanair
In trying to embrace the low-fares philosophy I recently attended the seminar on the subject at Business Travel 2000. I took issue with you then, outlining some of my misgivings. Now a situation has occurred leaving me seething with disbelief.
A last-minute call on Tuesday February 15 from our major commercial customer requested two seats to Dublin for the next afternoon. A quick look on Galileo showed Aer Lingus full but Ryanair at 2.05pm was mostly available but the return was limited. A booking was made and fare quoted at £139 plus tax per person, very high by Ryanair standards but not a problem.
Within five minutes the reference was back on queue, saying ‘Segments cancelled no fare’. Twore-bookings later, we ended up with a fare of £199 plus tax. An increase of £60 each! By then our customers had gone home, after having arranged their conference accommodation around the flights we had quoted.
One of these customers is disabled and needed pre-boarding, which compounded with the fares farrago, I thought we needed some human intervention. After fruitless attempts to get anyone on reservations, I got the number of a supervisor in Dublin, who was most unhelpful and said that unless we gave ticket numbers straight away the reservation would be cancelled.
Her response to the fare increase was that we have to allow 12hrs to elapse before anything is guaranteed. On requesting wheelchair assistance, we were told to “put it on Galileo as we are not allowed to help any Galileo agents and the aircraft only takes three wheelchairs anyway”.
We now advise any passenger to reconfirm their flights directly as we cannot accept any responsibility for Ryanair’s actions.
So my proposal is, Tim, if you want to deal with industry professionals get your systems up to speed. Alternatively, save the reduced rate you pay to Galileo, concentrate on Internet sales and agents can charge as they wish.
Richard D. Mills, manager – Travel Services, HUU Services Limited