Delayed discomfort

So you’ve come back from holidays (lucky you), and you’re telling anyone who’ll listen how furious you are that your flight was delayed. But when you tell them you’ve flown with Ryanair, you get the standard “you get what you pay for” response.

I’m sorry, WHAT?!

What I pay for is a 14:30 flight to London; what I get is a 16:00 flight. How is that getting what you pay for?! No, what I pay for is lack of comfort, service, and edible food. I pay to sit in a seat that’s still warm from the person on the flight before me.

When I buy Tesco Value frozen lasagne, I’m not buying a lucky dip, it’s still frozen lasagne in the box (though the ingredients may be somewhat questionable). I don’t open a tin of Centra’s Nice Price baked beans to be confronted by washing powder. I don’t peel my Lidl bananas and find chocolate inside (much as I’d like to).

“No frills” does not mean “no sense of time”. Next they’ll try to claim it means “no sense of direction”, so you’ll get the old “you’ve only yourself to blame” when your cheap flight to London ends up in Manchester.

By all means, if you like the whole pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey approach to flying and time-keeping, then knock yourself out. But for the rest of us, I have a suggestion: Let’s all club together and use the money we’re saving by choosing to fly Ryanair and buy Michael O’ Leary a watch. And a map (just in case).

And maybe a little plastic airplane he can play with in the bath.

In the meantime, let’s all stop kidding ourselves. With Ryanair, you’re never going to get what you pay for. At best, all you can hope for is to reach your intended destination sometime in the near future. But you can pretty much kiss goodbye to your timetable and your carefully-laid plans (and sometimes even your luggage).

In fact, the only thing I hate more than Ryanair is myself, for continuing to fly with them anyway.