originally published on Countries Beginning with I Feb 15, 2007

Low-cost air travel came to Europe many years afterSouthwest Airlines first started operating in the US. It wasn’t so long ago that a flight from Milan to Rome could cost as much as a flight to anywhere else in Europe, and almost as much as a flight to New York. Though my dad has been living in the UK for over 10 years, I rarely flew to visit him unless I could arrange a free stopover on my way to somewhere else.

Now we have Ryanair. I can fly from Bergamo (an hour away from my home in Lecco) to Luton (25 miles from where my dad lives in Milton Keynes) for as little as 60 euros roundtrip (it was even less until the UK government slapped on a new airport tax last month).

So I’ve been visiting my dad quite frequently, partly because he hasn’t been well (in 2005 I made four trips, for three of which he was in hospital), partly because it’s so easy to do.

My experiences with service and usability on Ryanair have been mixed. I’m not sure whether they actually have their own ground staff in other places, but in Bergamo they are condemned to use the local airport employees, and Italians are not famous for innate customer service skills.

Last night we had a case in point. Ryanair begins checkin two hours before flight time, no earlier. The flight board shows which of the numbered check-in counters will be used for a particular flight, so you can start lining up early if you wish. For this flight, counters 14-16 were listed.

I got into line, 10th or so at counter 16, with all three counters having equal lines at that point – logically enough, we distributed ourselves evenly among the lines.

At the appointed time, a young lady opened up counter 15, and the TV monitor above her head changed from “Checkin Closed” to “Checkin for Luton.” So did the monitor on counter 15 (and someone arrived to man it after a few minutes). But counter 16 remained obstinately at “Checkin Closed”.

We 16ers became nervous. Most of the people in the queue were British and spoke no Italian, and did not feel they had great success in their attempts to communicate with the young lady. So I tried in my fluent Italian.

“It will open when the monitor says it’s open,” she responded frostily.

“But the flight board says check in for this flight is at counters 14 through 16. When can we expect this one to open?”

“I have no control over that. It will open when my colleague gets back from boarding another flight.”

No indication as to when we might expect that to be. On the whole, the lady was rude and uninterested.

After 20 minutes or so, I noted that there were fouryoung ladies sitting idle at other counters in the same row, for flights that appeared to have finished checking in, while counter 16 still showed no signs of life. The lady at 15 continued unhelpful – it didn’t occur to her, apparently, to pick up the phone and find out where her colleague might be, so as to give us an estimate about whether we should stay where we were or move to one of the other (now much longer) lines.

I went to one of the idle ladies, who was much nicer about it all. She called someone who told her that counter 16 would only open at 9:30 – 45 minutes after the scheduled opening time of the other counters. It wasn’t clear why this should be so.

“It would be helpful if this was made clear on the monitors,” I pointed out. “People lined up at 16 not knowing that it was different from the others.”

“There’s no room for that information on the flight board,” she said. Which was true. But you could put it on the TV monitor at counter 16.

“We can’t do that, it’s controlled by computers.”

The classic fallacy: if it’s controlled by a computer, it cannot be touched by human hands.

“That’s my point,” I said gently. “The computer could change the information on that monitor. All it has to say is ‘Counter opens at 9:30.’” She didn’t think this was possible.

I was not feeling at all well – sinus infection and fever (if it wasn’t that my – far more ill – father was counting on a visit from me, I would have called off the trip entirely). The young lady very kindly checked me in herself, though she said, “Don’t tell anyone – I could get fired.” I thanked her profusely for her kindness and flexibility, which were in stark contrast to her colleague’s I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude.

Solutions:

The lady at counter 15 could have done a few simple things to make us happier:

  • give us some sort of reasonable estimate as to when counter 16 would open – make a phone call, if necessary
  • be a little nicer

I had taken the same flight only six weeks ago, when Ross and I visited Dad just after New Year’s. That airport experience was far worse, and another lesson in how a few simple gestures could have saved a situation.

Not surprisingly, during the holiday period, the flight was completely full, and late. We sat in the gate area until 40 minutes past the scheduled boarding time, with no information as to estimated departure. What would it have cost to make an announcement?

When someone finally did show up at the desk, we had to go up and ask what was going on (“due to late arrival of aircraft…”).

Once we’d all been herded onto the buses, we stood there for another 20 minutes or so. I could see from where I was standing that a handful of people were still at the desk, waiting for something, but no one bothered to tell us what was going on as we stood there in the cold. (I later heard that the delay was because someone at the airport had failed to make the proper – and requested in advance – arrangements for a wheelchair.)

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief when the buses finally started moving. We drove across the tarmac, pulled up in front of the plane, and then sat for another ten minutes.

From where we were standing, we could see up the stairway into the plane. The captain lounged against the wall in front of the door, apparently not expecting to move anytime soon. Hostesses flitted in and out of sight. Everyone appeared to be deliberately avoiding looking down at the buses, let alone giving us any sign that they knew we were there, waiting.

Again, it would have taken so little: just walk down the damn stairs and tell us what’s going on! Tell us how long we’ll be sitting here. At least wave from the doorway to acknowledge that you know your customers are sitting there waiting for you. Even if you can’t fix the situation, people feel better when they know what’s going on and have some sign that you actually give a damn that they are tired, cold, and uncomfortable.

We also boarded late on last night’s flight, some 20 minutes past the boarding time stamped on our boarding passes. No explanation given.

This would not have been a huge problem, but when we were all filing into the plane, settling our luggage and so on, the captain or co-pilot saw fit to announce that we had all better hurry up and get seated, because we had to take off within five minutes to catch an air traffic control slot, and if we didn’t we might have to wait as much as two hours.

This was just silly. It was patently clear that there was no way we could achieve liftoff within five minutes even had we begun taxiing as he said it. The threat was empty: even if it were true, there was nothing we could do at that point to save the situation. It wasn’t our fault that we had started boarding 20 minutes past schedule.

In the event, we took off probably 20 minutes later, and no further mention was made of the air traffic control slot.

In fairness, I must say that the Ryanair crew are usually very friendly and efficient, and sometimes demonstrate a welcome sense of humor. The guy pushing the duty-free cart last night went down the aisle offering “gift items or smellies”. On the way back it was “perfumes, colognes, washers, tumble dryers.”

Humor matters: even when things go badly, it’s much harder for the customers to get angry with someone who has made them laugh.

NB: I was going to contact Ryanair to make them aware of this page – good and bad – but their website shows absolutely no way to contact them via email. Which seems rather odd for a company that handles reservations entirely online.