Travel with Ryanair- Voyager sur Ryanair

Travelling with low-cost carriers has been hype for a few years now. Truly this solution, a lot cheaper than traditional airline carriers is attractive. So we tested low-cost with Ryanair for our trip Marseille-London.

In Marseille we are lucky to have a whole terminal of our airport dedicated to low-cost companies. With about a dozen destinations throughout Europe and Morrocco, MP² offers since late October 2006 a new way to travel without going broke!

So to start, let make things clear: people often confuse low-cost with charter. The difference? Unlike chaters, low-cost carriers have regular and scheduled flights. And unlike more traditional carriers, they offer affordable prices (if you book well in advance).

Now the process. Because if you’re used to travelling by plane, you might be a bit surprised the first time.

First of all, internet reservation… Well, nothing very innovative, since this stage gets more and more common. However, during this one, be careful of everything you do. Because, sure the tickets are cheap, but at this price you have basic tickets. But don’t worry, the website will be in charge of proposing options to complete your order! So watch out, because those are the little things that’ll make the price go up. Be sure of what you need and don’t need. For instance, if you plan to travel light, no need for you to take the option ‘luggage checking’...

Allow me to take a minute about this point! We had planned to travel light (we each had a backpack, small enough to come on board with us.) But our unipod didn’t pass the security test and since it was too small to be checked alone, we had to check one backpack. If this happens to you, no problem, you won’t have to abandon you bag at the airport, you would just have to pay a fee to check it. Yet I would recommend that you think about it beforehand: Ryanarir will be charging twice as much by doing so at the airport rather than online. We did pay 12€ (to check it in Marseille) and £12 (in London for the flight back!).

Then if you have to check one of your luggages, in Marseille, there is no treadmill next to the stewardess. Even small savings are important for Ryanair! You must carry your own bag a bit further and put it on a treadmill, before going through security.

Talking about security, let me remind those who aren’t up to date: safety rules are more restrictive than ever. Don't forget NOT to bring with you (in the bag you'll carry abroad) any bottle than can contain more than 100ml (3.38 oz) of liquid, paste or watever. And this is also true even if you bottle of shampoo is half way full! If you carry bottles or tubes containing more products than the limit, check you bags or the security will be happy to trash the items right in front of you!

Next stop is the traditional customs. For intra Europe flights a passport is needed, or a simple id card for Europeans.

Let me tell you about another small trick with Ryanair. The seats in the plane are not numbered, meaning you can sit wherever you please… If you travel with kids or with many friends, I recommend that you buy priority access. With this pass, you’ll be amongst the firsts to board the plane, and then have all the chances to all sit next to each other, or even to each have you window if you wish! You can buy these passes online or at the airport and the price is the same (3€ / £2 per person).

If you have a web check’ in ticket (available only if you’re not checking any bags), you’ll automatically have the access priority. However, with this web check’ in ticket be careful. We’ve had trouble with that. You absolutely need to print out your boarding pass from 72 to 4 hours before departure. Otherwise you’ll have to pay once more (£2 per person travelling, and moreover you’ll loose your priority!)

To get in the plane, there is no automatic bridge. It’s all about savings. Simply, you’ll be walking from the boarding gate to the plane, just a few feet away.

Thanks to this kind of savings, Ryanair offers cheaper flights. What’s more important is that it doesn’t impact travellers comfort. Make a few steps on the tarmac isn’t bothering… I actually find this quite fun (maybe because the weather was nice, sunny and not too cold. But on the other hand, it’s only 2 minutes, so… no big deal!)

On board, when you have a seat you like, you must put all your belongings on the overhead compartment. You're not allowed to keep anything with you for take off and landing, no purse, no camera… nothing! But you’ll have the possibility to take your book or magazines out after take off.

The airline will not give away snacks. But if you want to eat or drink something, you can buy a variety of snacks to the flights attendants. And even though it’s not free, the prices are not too expensive.

Even if the seats could not be reclined, and our steward barked a bit at us because we took a photo in the plane (before taking off), the two-hour trip went smoothly.

To sum up, I’d say that Ryanair is a good cheap way to travel, but you need to know the tricks or the additional expenses might surprise you and add up to the final bill. We’ve been a bit fooled by those tricks this time, but we’ve learnt from our mistakes (let’s wish that you won’t do the same as ours). Next time, everything will go smoother!