These retorts are objectively funny, which is right on brand, because this is an Irish airline, and Irish people are objectively funny. It’s also delicious schadenfreude for the rest of us who get to laugh at people who whinge about €12 flights being publicly shamed by the very entity they’re attempting to complain to.
Ryanair’s social media is also, however, a fairly neat summary of the way it seems most budget airlines feel about their customers. That is, they don’t care. Their attitude falls somewhere between negligence and outright hostility.
The skill from Ryanair is in taking that hostility and turning it into something funny. It’s in taking the bad customer service, the poor product and the lack of any effective channels of complaint and making it loveable.
Most airlines at least pretend to care, or just don’t address their customers directly (or publicly). Jetstar, for example, tends just to promote its new flight routes on social media, with the occasional piece of damage control if something has gone wrong on a flight and it’s made the news.
Ryanair though? It gets on the front foot. And it works, too, because suddenly this airline isn’t a faceless capitalistic vulture eking every last penny out of its hapless customers through multiple fine-print rorts. It’s the affable Irish bloke down at your local pub making everyone laugh with his cheeky one-liners.
Jetstar may be no-frills, but at least it’s cheap.Credit: Supplied
Maybe that is part of why we continue to fly with Ryanair, despite all the hassles and humiliation. I know I certainly continue to fly with Ryanair, and with many other budget airlines just like it.
But what’s the rest of the explanation? Why do we customers put up with companies that clearly have no concern for us? Why do we give our money to corporate behemoths who are out and proud about the fact they’re offering the very minimum of service with the very minimum of care?
Mostly, it’s because we have very little choice. We want to travel, and the only way to do that, if you’re going to fly anywhere, is to pay the smallest amount for an airfare possible.
Cost of living is skyrocketing right now, interest rates are still going up, the already huge divide between the haves and have-nots is widening – so if you want to go on holiday, you’re going to have to do it on the cheap.
Ryanair might not care about the fact you’re locked in one of its toilets or that you don’t have a window, but it will transport you, in the air, from one country to another for about the price of a meal at a normal restaurant. Same goes with Jetstar here in Australia (for a little more money) and many other budget carriers around the world.
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The customer service is appalling, the onboard experience is free of any frills, and best of luck to you if they lose your luggage. But if you go into the flight expecting all of this and doing everything you can to mitigate it – taking your own food and entertainment, travelling with carry-on only, ensuring you don’t have any tight connections at your destination – you get to soar through the air to somewhere exciting at a cost that many of us can actually afford to bear.
I don’t mind this about budget carriers, in some ways. At least they own who they are. I would prefer that to, say, Qantas, who give us fluffy TV ads about post-pandemic family reunions, all the while pocketing record profits and indulging in a massive share buyback that shifts even more wealth to those who already enjoy it.
And customer service can be just as awful from those airlines who charge far more for the experience.
So yes, I’ll fly Jetstar again, despite a few average experiences in the past. I’ll fly Ryanair again too, even though I know the company cares very little for my personal enjoyment.
But I’ll probably refrain from complaining to them on social media.