Ryan Air-Never again
Perceptive readers will have noticed from the title of the blog that I am presently not a happy camper. The trauma began this morning when I had to wake up at 5 am to catch my 6.25 am bus to Torp Airport for my 9.50am flight to London.
When I went to check in, I was dumbfounded to be told that my flight had been cancelled and that I was going to be booked on the next flight out at 2.10pm.
NO explanation was offered.
I was then told that I could not be checked in yet and to address my questions to the service centre who were the agents for Ryan Air. Ok, stop here. The moment you hear the word 'agent' and knowing that the staff here are Norwegian-- let us just say that 'proactive' is not a word used to describe Norwegians much, you know you are in trouble. My gut instinct was proven correct.
We (I was travelling with 2 other classmates) were told, 'flight is cancelled, go and check in for the later flight.' When my classmate protested that we had been sent in from the check in line, she merely ignored us and repeated what she said.
Again, NO explaination, so we shall not even comment on the lack of sympathy or kind words.
We thus meekly made our way to the check in line again, at which point I suddenly woke up from my sleepy fog and thought, 'hey wait a minute, they cancel our flight, subject us to a 4 hour delay and we don't get an explanation?'
So I marched back and asked (politely) what was going on. The lady who was attending to me was very nice and said she had to ask her colleague who I presume was the contact person as she was wearing a serious looking headpiece thinggy. That everso nice and everso blond person (henceforth ENEB) said 'oh bad weather' and the proceeded to emphasise that 'No Ryan Air is not going to give you compensation of food or drink.' I was like, 'ok, that was not my question' and asked the lady serving me, 'why weren't we told this the first time we came around. ENEB again chipped in, 'But there were 2 announcements made' as if that was the end of things. I said 'look, you are not even serving me and I have every right to be upset that my flight was cancelled and no explanation was forthcoming. Plus I did not hear the announcements' ( after this conversation, Bjorg listened to the announcment carefully and the English version did not offer an explanation. Bjorg is unable to comment on the Norwegian version which was much longer.
But then again as ENEB would have said, it was probably Bjorg's fault that she could not understand Norwegian in an international airport).
The exchange concluded with me stating that I found her very rude to which she exclaimed 'oooh.. but I am not rude..' Ok, isn't the first thing you learn in front line service school that you never never agitate an already unhappy customer especially if she is rightly agitated? But I guess ENEB went to a different school.
So, you think, that would be all, right? No, after waiting from 8,10 am to 1.45pm, announcement was made that the flight had been delayed to 4 pm.
Again, no explanation.
A couple of minutes later, long Norwegian announcement (oh the suspense!) and English announcement saying that Ryan Air was cancelling the flight, British passport holders please report to customs, everybody else get your luggage and oh! remember to return your duty free alcohol.
That was it, no help, no instructions on what to do, when the next flight was... Again, part III of the announcement comes on saying to report to customer service (hahah service) to reschedule your flight again.
End of long story, we are booked on the 10.10 flight, again helpful service people tell us they don't know if the flight will take off or not.
So this is the situation, if the plane does not fly tonight Bjorg will lose one night accomodation, Stansted express tickets, many hours of her life, a meeting with a good friend and on top of that delicious sundae of delights, experienced the crowning cherry of the worst service she has ever experienced in her life.
Bjorg will have to drag her sad self to Torp again on a 2 hour bus ride tomorrow morning, spend another 200 kroners to go through this circus again.
Bjorg thinks NOT. So what next? We can only wait with bated breath. Bjorg would also like to thank Jose K who had to listen to her mad rantings the whole day. You da best!
When I went to check in, I was dumbfounded to be told that my flight had been cancelled and that I was going to be booked on the next flight out at 2.10pm.
NO explanation was offered.
I was then told that I could not be checked in yet and to address my questions to the service centre who were the agents for Ryan Air. Ok, stop here. The moment you hear the word 'agent' and knowing that the staff here are Norwegian-- let us just say that 'proactive' is not a word used to describe Norwegians much, you know you are in trouble. My gut instinct was proven correct.
We (I was travelling with 2 other classmates) were told, 'flight is cancelled, go and check in for the later flight.' When my classmate protested that we had been sent in from the check in line, she merely ignored us and repeated what she said.
Again, NO explaination, so we shall not even comment on the lack of sympathy or kind words.
We thus meekly made our way to the check in line again, at which point I suddenly woke up from my sleepy fog and thought, 'hey wait a minute, they cancel our flight, subject us to a 4 hour delay and we don't get an explanation?'
So I marched back and asked (politely) what was going on. The lady who was attending to me was very nice and said she had to ask her colleague who I presume was the contact person as she was wearing a serious looking headpiece thinggy. That everso nice and everso blond person (henceforth ENEB) said 'oh bad weather' and the proceeded to emphasise that 'No Ryan Air is not going to give you compensation of food or drink.' I was like, 'ok, that was not my question' and asked the lady serving me, 'why weren't we told this the first time we came around. ENEB again chipped in, 'But there were 2 announcements made' as if that was the end of things. I said 'look, you are not even serving me and I have every right to be upset that my flight was cancelled and no explanation was forthcoming. Plus I did not hear the announcements' ( after this conversation, Bjorg listened to the announcment carefully and the English version did not offer an explanation. Bjorg is unable to comment on the Norwegian version which was much longer.
But then again as ENEB would have said, it was probably Bjorg's fault that she could not understand Norwegian in an international airport).
The exchange concluded with me stating that I found her very rude to which she exclaimed 'oooh.. but I am not rude..' Ok, isn't the first thing you learn in front line service school that you never never agitate an already unhappy customer especially if she is rightly agitated? But I guess ENEB went to a different school.
So, you think, that would be all, right? No, after waiting from 8,10 am to 1.45pm, announcement was made that the flight had been delayed to 4 pm.
Again, no explanation.
A couple of minutes later, long Norwegian announcement (oh the suspense!) and English announcement saying that Ryan Air was cancelling the flight, British passport holders please report to customs, everybody else get your luggage and oh! remember to return your duty free alcohol.
That was it, no help, no instructions on what to do, when the next flight was... Again, part III of the announcement comes on saying to report to customer service (hahah service) to reschedule your flight again.
End of long story, we are booked on the 10.10 flight, again helpful service people tell us they don't know if the flight will take off or not.
So this is the situation, if the plane does not fly tonight Bjorg will lose one night accomodation, Stansted express tickets, many hours of her life, a meeting with a good friend and on top of that delicious sundae of delights, experienced the crowning cherry of the worst service she has ever experienced in her life.
Bjorg will have to drag her sad self to Torp again on a 2 hour bus ride tomorrow morning, spend another 200 kroners to go through this circus again.
Bjorg thinks NOT. So what next? We can only wait with bated breath. Bjorg would also like to thank Jose K who had to listen to her mad rantings the whole day. You da best!
posted by Bjorg @ 6:15 PM
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