My, how the times have changed. Ryanair, an airline that once prided itself on tacking extra costs onto fares every which way imaginable, has decided to trim up it image a bit, and is cutting down its collection of baggage fees from 108 — yes, you read that right — to just six.
While even six different fees might seem like a lot of options to the average traveler, relative to more than a hundred, that number seems positively generous. The move means that 92% of its 116 million customers will see reduced fees, Ryanair said.
Previously, the airline used some mysterious calculations including weight, distance, number of bags, time of booking, and so and so forth, to decide how much it would cost to check bags.
Starting today, it’ll charge fees based only on weight and the distance of travel:
The move is part of Ryanair’s “Always Getting Better” initiative, which was launched in 2013 as the European discount carrier decided to make an about-face from its “Who needs seat belts?” attitude. At that time, the airline’s eminently quotable CEO Michael O’Leary announced it was time to treat passengers nicely instead of nickel-and-diming them every chance they could get.
“We should try to eliminate things that unnecessarily piss people off,” he said at a shareholders meeting back then, after several shareholders complained about the impact of customer service on sales.
The airline also recently launched customer service app called “Rate My Flight,” inviting passengers to speak up and be honest about their flying experience.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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