Ryanair’s money-saving schemes

In the past year, Ryanair has implemented outrageous changes that overcharge their customers and make their lives more inconvenient, all to satisfy the frugality of their CEO, Michael O’Leary. When you can eliminate all but one toilet on the plane, and charge people to use it, you know you have no remorse. Supposedly the other two toilets on the plane are rarely used and their removal will save passengers about £2 ($3) each flight. What can passengers do will all this extra flow? Pay to use that 1 remaining toilet. The airline is trying to encourage people to take care of business before they board the plane so they began charging everyone a pound to use it.

As expected, this tinkle tax was soon removed. Good thing too, or else they would’ve had another Gerard Depardieu incident on their hands. In a further attempt to save money, Ryanair announced they would be installing 10 rows of “standing seats” in the back of the plane to optimize the amount of space used. But of course the usual culprits, seat belts and safety requirements, ended the dream of vertical seats before people could even give them a try. Not sure how passengers would’ve been able to sleep like that though…Also, a charge even more egregious than $50 bag fees, which I believe to be the reason people are occupying Wall Street, is the new £40 ($63) fee to print boarding passes. The insane charge, meant to speed up check-in by encouraging checking in online, was contested by a furious passenger in court, but it was deemed perfectly legal. Lastly, the most offensive/humorous fee yet: the fat tax. An extra fee would be collected from overweight passengers and would be used to lower the fares of the rest of the plane. As mean as it may seem, a third of the airline’s passengers agreed to the charge but the plan did not go past that as it would be difficult to collect and would slow down boarding. Ryanair: the funniest airline in the world.