Recently, I booked a flight with RyanAir from Prague to Brussels. After having an overall horrible experience with the company and their representatives, and a disappointing experience on the flight as well, I want to make sure the people around me know not to use this airline. Here is why I will no longer be using RyanAir and why you shouldn't waste your money either.

1. Website Doesn't Work

My first issue with RyanAir came with booking my flight. I booked this flight alongside two of my friends and two out of three of us had the same issue. When going to check out and purchase our ticket, the website had an error. This error would not allow us to purchase the ticket and would cause the page to refresh. Each time the page refreshed the price of the ticket would double.

I was the first to purchase my ticket, however, I ended up paying three times the price of what my other friend paid because of this issue. Thinking this was an issue with my credit card I called to fix it, nothing was wrong, it was the RyanAir website.

Unsure what to do, I went to contact RyanAir customer service who were unreachable. This leads me to believe that this "glitch" is actually a scam to overcharge their customers.

2. Pricing Scam

Like many other airlines, RyanAir reserves the right to change the price of the flight at any given time, much like other airlines. This change in price would have made sense if I had exited the webpage and come back later, however, this was not what happened.

I have a credit card from a major company that is accepted at any retailer, so when I have an issue, it is surprising to me. When my third friend was able to book with no problems using the same card, I started to question whether or not this was actually an issue with the site, or if it was intentional.

This same issue happened to my second friend as well. If we had been the last ones to book our flight I would have understood the price difference, however as my third friend booked after we had and still paid a significantly lower price, it seems shady on their behalf, especially in combination with their "refund policy" and lacking customer service.

When Googling this error message it became very clear that this is a common occurrence as this error message screen was all over the web. When looking at the RyanAir Twitter, people tweeting at them with this error message was not hard to find.

3. Terrible Customer Service

What made this issue look even worse on their behalf was their customer service or lack thereof. I was unable to reach a representative for about two hours prior to booking my flight. This meant no one was able to help resolve their website issue while it was happening. I had to resort to calling my mother and having her book the flight for me using another site that was not RyanAir.

I first attempted to use their online chat service which was not available at the time. I then proceeded to call their hotline. A machine answered and when I selected to talk to a live person I was hung up on.

Finally, I was able to access their live chat feature after two hours of it being unavailable and glitching. The representative I spoke to was unable to help me and directed me to another web portal. This would have been fine, however, he ended the chat without answering my questions. My interaction with this representative was not rude or malicious, I simply asked what category my complaint would fall under.

After filling out the form in the portal as recommended, I had to wait a week for a response. This response again did nothing for me and redirected me to another form, which I am still waiting to hear back from. At the very least I would like an explanation as to why my credit card was unable to be used on the site, let alone a refund for the issues with their site.

4. Poor In-Flight Experience

RyanAir is known for hiring new pilots. I knew to expect this going into my flight, but if you were not aware of this it is useful information. I would say this was definitely noticeable during my flight, especially the landing.

My biggest complaint with the in-flight experience was with the chairs and the floors. The chairs on the flight were incredibly uncomfortable, especially when compared to equivalent airlines. The floors on the flight were also uneven, making it unsafe to walk around.

Their recent policy change on cabin bags also negatively impact the in-flight experience in my opinion. A bag is not a "cabin" bag if cannot be kept in the cabin. Customers must now pay an additional £5 to bring their cabin bag on the plane. If not their baggage will be stored underneath the plane and will need to be reclaimed later.

In my opinion, the purpose of only traveling with a carry-on is to not have to deal with reclaiming luggage or having to worry about anything being stolen or damaged. This new policy makes having your carry-on with you unpleasant as you now have to pay extra to do everything yourself.

5. Terrible Care of Luggage

Usually, people joke about having their luggage tossed around by airport workers. When traveling with RyanAir, this is not a joke. There was no care taken with the luggage of passengers, in fact, we were actually able to watch our luggage getting thrown around.

This experience made me regret not paying extra to just bring my carry-on with me as it did cause items in my bag to leak, however, I really just regretted not booking a flight with another airline.

Summary

Overall, after my experience with RyanAir I find it hard to believe their company is still in business. I have never had such a poor experience using a company's website, customer service, or flying in general. At the very least I would expect a response from a customer service portal, but RyanAir has proved themselves incapable of doing the bare minimum.

I find it incomprehensible that they could get away with providing such a poor overall experience, essentially scamming two-thirds of their customers, and to still be in business. It is entirely unreasonable that they could run a scam like this on their customers and expect any repeat business, or respect as a company

Hopefully, you have not had as poor of an experience as I have had with RyanAir. If you are looking to book a cheap flight in the near future, I would totally recommend EasyJet, I have had nothing but good experiences with their company and have found their flights to be cheaper and more enjoyable. Basically, fly anything but RyanAir.