So I checked in online for my British Airways flight to Denver, but didn’t have an easy way (at my dad’s house) to print the boarding card. The site assured me that I could do this when I arrived at the airport.

When I got to Heathrow, several big and immediately obvious signs advised me that if I had checked in online but had NOT yet printed my ticket, I should proceed to a kiosk to do so. I was pleased at this rare example of clear instructions at an airport.

I went to the kiosk, punched in the number of my reservation, and got a screen saying: “You have already checked in.” And that was it – the kiosk returned to its original “check in here” state. I had seen no option to print a boarding pass, nor did the machine look as if it was going to do this on its own initiative. I tried again, and, even looking carefully, could not find any print option, though the screens were very clear and uncluttered. Fortunately, there was a lady standing behind the kiosks ready to help, so I asked her.

“If you’ve already checked in, go straight to the Bag Drop and they will print the boarding pass for you.”

…in flat contradiction of the instructions on great big signs all over the place!

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.

originally published on Countries Beginning with I, May 30, 2007 (with new addendum here)

I hope Ryanair’s web designers get big bonuses this year: they are helping the company rake in money it doesn’t deserve. And there’s nothing for a frustrated passenger to do but bend over and take it.

I just booked a flight for my daughter and myself to fly from Italy (where we live) to visit my father in the UK (where he lives) before he has major surgery in June. Upon arriving at the payment screen (for two passengers) I get the following options:

If I wish to travel without checking in baggage, I must choose Online Checkin/Priority Boarding, which has a cost of 6 euros. I can’t leave the selector on “How many bags to Check in?” – that results in an error.

I can’t actually use the online check-in service because (a) two of us are travelling together, one of whom needs to check a bag and (b):

At this point in the purchase process, the application KNOWS that I am travellng from Italy to the UK, so why is it offering – forcing! – a service which it knows I cannot use?

Notice the NB at the bottom of the screenshot above. Yeah, like hell. I have rarely seen Ryanair staff in Bergamo offer priority boarding even to people who need it (“passengers needing assistance or travelling with small children”). The fact that priority boarding is specifically excluded for Italy acknowledges this. So I have in effect paid a six-euro tax for Ryanair’s poor web design.

Furthermore, there is no way to speak with anyone at Ryanair except via a reservations center which costs €1.50 a minute to speak to (or, more likely, hold for).

If Ryanair needs that badly to make more money, they should just charge me more for the flight. This kind of crap makes them look incompetent in web design, which in turn leads the customer to wonder how much they can be trusted with the bigger stuff, such as security of credit card data – not good for a company that lives through online bookings. And/or it leads me to suspect that they have found a dishonest new way to make their fares look lower when in fact they cannot afford to fly me without that extra 6 euros. Which is another form of false advertising.

Addendum, June 26 – When we checked in for the return flight from Luton last night, the lady told us we had one priority check-in paid for and could purchase another at the desk “over there.” This reminded me of the above website irritation so I said: “As a matter of fact, I didn’t want that priority check-in and couldn’t use it from Italy, but your website is messed up and forced me to buy it.”

“Some other people have said that,” she replied. So… Ryanair desk staff are well aware of this problem. But either none of them have tried to communicate it to corporate HQ, or HQ doesn’t care (or likes things the way they are – they make more money). This was a red flag to a bull (me). The lady’s apparent indifference to the matter didn’t help.

“Maybe someone should be told to fix it,” I said. “There’s no webmaster address anywhere on the site, so I couldn’t reach anyone to complain about it.”

Then she got defensive and snotty: “Well, obviously a lot of people manage to figure it out.”

Ross was, as usual, squirming with embarrassment at her mother’s obsession with making things better (and pissing people off), so I left the counter, grumbling, rather than get into a fight with the lady (had one with Ross instead).

But, really… I don’t pay to be smart-mouthed by someone who’s supposed to serve me, and, while my friend Sara told me that she did manage to book on Ryanair without paying for luggage or priority boarding, if the feat is so difficult that I, with 25 years’ experience online couldn’t figure it out in a good 15 minutes of trying, well, we have a usability problem, don’t we?

Solution: Anyone know how to reach someone who has influence on web design at Ryanair.com?