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

That’s quite frustrating though, because they don’t make this clear on their website at all!

Fly with them reasonably often, the prices are just too tempting to pass up. We have had some delays of an hour or two, but nothing massively significant. They tend to operate a schedule so the planes do 3 return trips a day in high season, with limited time on the ground in each destination, so you may flying to the Algarve at 6pm, but your plane has already been to say Poland in the morning and Spain after lunch before you even get on it, thus a delay on the first round trip will inevitably delay the later flights for the same aircraft. You can track your specific plane on flight radar though, so you know in advance if it's running to schedule or not. We have turned up at the airport only say 60/70 minutes before scheduled departure because we know full well the flight is delayed. Otherwise they are fine if you stick to the baggage rules.

I’ve flown with them a fair bit. Sometimes they’re checked and sometimes not. I notice the ones that are wheeled are usually the ones checked more than a backpack say.

Ryanair are open with their policies. They’re cheap, supply the bare minimum and everything costs extra whether that’s bad or wanting to sit together. As long as you go with low expectations and stick within their baggage rules you’ll be grand

Carefully read all of the T&C. Absolutely no frills but probably the most organized and efficient boarding onto a plane I’ve ever been in. They did exactly what the contract said

@TeamGeriatric

a delay on the first round trip will inevitably delay the later flights for the same aircraft.

There's a lot of "it depends" about this but bear in mind if things get really out shape early in the day the airline might have the option of an aircraft change at some point to get the flight schedule back on the rails.

But the Ryanair concept is operated on a no spare equipment capacity. The model is built on the concept that aircraft standing on the ground are losing money.