grounded planes, too many pilots and unions for a reported 21% fall in Q1 profits to €243m and the potential of 900 jobs being lost.
Chat is, that they are going to reduce the number of pilots, so what impact will that have on the routes they offer? and ultimately how will this impact the wider unique offering Ryanair have offered to customers over and above competitors?
Ryanair has about 17,000 staff with 5,500 working as pilots. The have more than 9,000 cabin crew and 1,130 ground staff. They obviously have marketing, admin, IT and other management staff in the mix as well.
Whilst it’s disappointing to hear about any job cuts and all the other reasons for the wider loss (Nothing like planning ahead and Risk Planning) we must highlight we really do like Ryanair and Irish consumers should look at all the positives they have brought to the market.
Without Ryanair many of us would not get to travel across Europe so easily and they have clearly helped to boost our economic development on the Island of Ireland with the free movement of European staff and Tourism investment…
…but we do think Ryanair still have a lot of work to do on their customer service and public perception…. which we think, could also be impacting bookings and revenue streams.
Take Responsibility
They are still making simple but very annoying mistakes – like not managing out of hours enquiries/complaints effectively enough (Online and Offline), they are still separating families on bookings; charging big money to do simple admin updates, charging for seat arrangements, charging for ques, overhead luggage (Even though you can bring loads of duty-free on with ya) ….and is priority booking really that big a perk anymore when over half the flight have paid for it?
We think Ryanair need to work on a better loyalty programmes (With less arrogance and gimmicks) and we are fairly confident they will see an increase in bookings – we would def plan our year out better and invest in flights and packages if we thought Ryanair respected us as a consumer more.
