Booked a flight with Ryanair, have I made a mistake?

[DontReinMeIn]

I’ve booked a flight with Ryanair and now it feels like all I’m getting is horror stories. Bags being turned away even though they fit, delays, cancellations, no replacement flights etc.

have I made a mistake?! I’m stuck now because I can’t cancel and get a refund, but am I going to end up having the worst time of my life

Yeah it’ll squish, it’s just rather annoying

I fly with them all the time . They’re fine , rude staff but if you follow the rules re bag size you’ll be fine . Duty free does not count as a bag by the way

I’ve never had a problem with Ryanair on the 10+ flights I’ve taken with them.

We fly with Ryanair at least 3 times a year (family abroad), we have done for 15 years and it’s fine. In fact I’m never sure what all the fuss is about.

Don't do this unless it's a soft bag. It's just not worth the hassle

I fly Ryanair loads and as @samarrange says just follow the rules and it's fine. They are actually in my opinion a pretty decent airline as they do exactly what it says on the tin. They get you from a to b. Generally on time in my experience!

But if you bring a hard case that does not meet the size limit then you are likely to have a problem. Get a tape measure and measure it from the widest points including wheels. If it's over then take a different bag. It's really not that complicated.

I was going to say similar. I think a lot of the issues arise when people don’t follow the airline rules and then are pissed off when they get caught out. It’s just not worth it. One of the pay offs for cheap flights is you have to follow their rules. If you do that, you’ll be fine.

Yes, yes you have.

We fly mostly with Ryanair and never had any problems with bags or delays.

It’s a soft bag. I’m taking two backpacks, one that fits the large bag dimensions and one that’s 3cm too tall but fits the other dimensions. It’s just for water, my documents and my camera, so I’m hoping it should be fine?

I fly Business class for most trips over 7 hours or so. And for short hops into Europe I’ve flown Ryanair, EasyJet, and Eurowings. They’re all OK, and all much of a muchness. Just be prepared to queue and queue …

The base fare is cheap, so just add the things that you’re worried about. I tend to pay for checked luggage and a seat at the front so getting on and off are as trouble free as they can be.

Ditch the water. And the other things should fit into a largeish handbag or shoulder bag. Don’t know why you need a backpack for those. Book a seat that allows a cabin bag, plus “ personal item.” Your soft bag is the cabin bag that goes overhead, your personal item is a large handbag or shoulder bag.

ive paid for the two bags. I’m taking a large 40l osprey backpack as my “suitcase” (I cannot be arsed to drag a wheely suitcase around France and Italy for two weeks!), and then was going to take the daypack which goes with it as my personal item

I've never had an issue with Ryanair (except that it is a cheapo airline and you get what you pay for)

My DH absolutely refuses to fly with them so it's a solo trip for me when I use them.

We’ve flown many many times with Ryanair. 95% of the flights have been on time/stress free. We had one major delay. We have never paid extra to sit together, yet have never been placed apart once we’ve checked in. Yes I’ve seen people get told they have to pay for their bag because it doesn’t fit in the measuring contraption, but that’s because they were idiots who A. Didn’t check the size requirements, or B. Thought the rules didn’t apply to them.

Ach, Ryanair - the Marmite of airlines.

My two nightmare experiences of Ryanair are now a long time ago - over 20-25 years ago - so I think those issues are firmly in the past (got literally screamed at on one flight in 1999, and on another the cabin crew tried to steal from me by not bringing my change from a cash purchase).
The positive about Ryanair: they’re very safe (because O’Leary knows a culpable accident would sink them) and they’re really into punctuality (because delays cost money). Their landings are hard as fuck, so do be prepared for that, but it is actually safer like that because 737s tend to float along runways (on DD’s flight this week the cabin crew called it a ‘classic Ryanair landing’ after they had been totally slammed into the ground). And they can be genuinely cheap as long as you’re quite flexible about dates and destinations.
The real problem is the sense of ritual humiliation passengers get put through on occasion. O’Leary doesn't respect passengers or passenger comfort, and that sometimes trickles down to how cabin crew and ground staff treat passengers too. Some people - a lot of them on this thread, it seems - don’t mind that or don’t even sense it. Others hate it. It’s the airline equivalent of a Spoons at kicking out time. I certainly only fly RA if I have to, and no other airline is available.
DD said the gate staff at Stansted were really pretty aggressive to others about hand luggage this week. O’Leary has just raised the reward for ‘finding’ oversized baggage and this team were treating it like a challenge to stick just about every underseat bag through the sizer. DD’s bag was way under size, but she still felt the general aggression from the staff - the underlying sense was ‘you bastards have all done something wrong, we just need to find it’. I don’t think every team would be so hardcore about it. But I also wouldn’t be 3 cm over the size limit!

We have only had 2 major delays in approx 90 flights with Ryanair. One was the fault of French air traffic control, one was because the radio failed on the plane and we had to divert to France to swap planes.

Good luck. Ryanair have just cancelled my flight from Manchester to Chania next July. Alternative flight offered but it arrives after 9pm when my original flight arrived at the reasonable time of mid sfternoon. I applied for a refund on the flights, but no confirmation email yet received about the refund being processed. Cant buy another flight until I get the refund. They’re a bloody nightmare.

Jesus that’s early! If they do that I can get an easyJet flight, but this one was half the price so I don’t particularly want to do that!

I have never had a problem with ryanair, whereas easyjet treated us really badly in covid and we lost £600 over flexiflights.

I was going to say I’ve had far more problems with EasyJet that Ryanair, including a night sleeping on an airport floor in Ibiza with only a 5 euro voucher for a cafe that wasn’t open to keep us going!

If it can be squashed into the size requirement then it will be fine. If it has a hard back or anything that means it cannot squash then it won't. I flew from France last year and a lady in front of me had a hiking backpack that had a kind of hard back to it and that was over. It could not fit in the sizer so she had to pay up. Did not matter that it was not as wide or deep as the size restrictions, it was too long and that was that. Each dimension W L D is measured independently, it's not a volume sizing. And the sizer itself is metal and does not have any flexibility.

I've taken soft bags that have dimensions that are longer but I do not fill it up and therefore it easily fits into the space and that's no issue at all.

Yeah it should be fine to fit! I don’t want to take a small case or anything as that will mean then having to pack a daypack too. I also don’t want to take a shoulder bag because they’re inconvenient!

Ryanair are now paying ground staff €2,50 for each “rogue” (their wording) bag they identify, so make sure you stick within the rules.

’the worst time of your life’ ?
that’s a no.
I use them regularly, cheap and cheerful, you get what you pay for.

Yes, something similar happened to me recently (though they offered me a free flight change to the previous day so I took that). Buying Ryanair tickets more than 6 months in advance is a risk because flight schedules do change.

Otherwise though I use Ryanair lots and they are generally absolutely fine and v good value compared to anyone else. I always get seated away from my travelling companion but that's not really a problem for us.