Talk:Ryanair

Aer Rianta

Also criticised are what are seen as vitriolic attacks on opponents, notably former Irish Minister for Transport Mary O'Rourke (1997-2002), who was personally ridiculed in a series of controversial newspaper advertisements when she refused to break up the state monopoly which then ran Irish airports, Aer Rianta (now largely restructured). (The break-up of Aer Rianta remains a high profile demand for Michael O'Leary. It is due to be implemented during 2005 under the State Airports Act 2004).

Was Aer Rianta broken up? The sentence is in the future tense -- or does the "large restructuring" refer to the breakup? Either way, this part is unclear and I don't know enough to fix it. Liamdaly620 23:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It hasn't been broken up yet, only renamed to Dublin Airport Authority. Soon it will be broken up with a new Shannon Airport Authority and Cork Airport Authority. Seabhcán 12:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed

'Ryanair is one of Europe's most high-profile companies, strongly praised by consumers and by business people and sharply criticised mainly by some amongst the Trade Union establishment. '

marketing fluff a.k.a. POV

[the company is praised for] 'radical management, '

what does "radical management" mean? hopefully not that it's managed by IRA. please define this term properly if you want to include it back.

Online bookings

The story about online bookings being first something hidden from the CEO but then later when it proved successful claimed by the CEO as his original idea all along. Can this be substantiated in some way?

disambig

A common error where I live and work confuses this airline with Ryan International Airlines - where best to place a disambig note? oreb 10:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• added it, i forgot all about that, i wondered for the longest time if they were the same company with seperate operations. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 10:11, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • thanks oreb 10:19, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Destinations Lists proposal

The Destinations list looks a little unsightly, with the long City (Airport) format. I propose changing it to City ✈. Using the Unicode character 9992 as a link to the airport website. So the code is [[airport|<font size=+1>✈</font>]] .

For example, Ireland...

• Ireland
  • Cork (Cork Airport), Derry (Derry Airport), Dublin (Dublin Airport), Kerry (Kerry Airport), Knock (Knock Airport), Shannon (Shannon International Airport)

would become...

• Ireland
  • Cork ✈, Derry ✈, Dublin ✈, Kerry ✈, Knock ✈, Shannon ✈

Any objections? Please let me know if this doesn't work in anyone's browser. Works fine in Netscape Seabhcan 15:24, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agree the list looks unsightly and needs working on. Your idea seems good but the unicode character shows up as a question mark here, using both Mozilla and Firefox. Maybe use three-letter IATA codes? So we'd have:

• Ireland
  • Cork (ORK), Derry (LDY), Dublin (DUB), Kerry (KIR), Knock (NOC), Shannon (SNN)

Possible that's a little bit obscure for the average user though.Worldtraveller 15:42, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm...what I did was basically add in the data following the format I have seen in quite a number of other major airline pages. They all use this format, except for some which dont list the airport.--Huaiwei 18:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see the little planes in Firefox on both Linux and Windows and but not in IE. I think using the IATA codes is a better idea (and better than what's there now). It certainly tidies up the list and the status bar link shows the fullname of the page anyway. jlang 19:55, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Criticisms list

I just removed the bullet pointing from the list of criticisms, as well as the bolding of the text. I felt that it looked like some kind of charge sheet, and thought it could do with just reading like a normal paragraph, for the sake of an NPOV. Worldtraveller 10:37, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Webpage screenshot

I just removed the screenshot of the web page, because I felt it didn't really illustrate anything in particular and looked a bit awkward and out of place. Worldtraveller 20:23, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Repetition

Just a comment: The wheelchair criticism and O'Leary's "bloodbath" comment are both mentioned twice in the article. It looks like fill, and could (albeit unlikely) be construed as a little biased by some. --dahamsta 16:06, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agee - I've removed the offending duplications, and also adjusted a couple of other bits, hopefully making them more NPOV. Worldtraveller 16:38, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Does Ryanair fly to Erfurt?

Ryanair seem to advertise a Stansted-Erfurt flight but it isn't available to book. When you book Altenburg, the site offers "We also fly to Erfurt Weimer from London Stansted". And Erfurt appears as a ghostly image on their new route-map, but cannot be clicked on. Whats going on? This isn't a new bug, its been there for months. Is there some airport dispute going on at Erfurt which is preventing Ryanair from flying there? Seabhcán 15:09, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) Also the Erfurt Website offers "Shopping in London - Fly from Erfurt Airport. The direct flights of the airline Ryanair are carried out daily on seven days per week.", but the flights don't appear on its schedual. Seabhcán 15:14, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Strange one - from this article it looks like the STN-ERF route was closed down as 'underperforming'; quite why they've still got it on the routemap I don't know. Couldn't find any indication of a dispute that might have led to a temporary stopping of flights. Worldtraveller 15:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd say they just haven't gotten around to updating the webpage booking code, I've often found the website out of date. I remember on the old webpage they had launched a new route but it was literally months before there was any content on the destination page. Actually if you look at the Rochefort destination guide there is nothing there at the moment -- Lochaber 16:50, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On an article about an Irish company that mainly operates in the UK, is "labor union" correct?

At the least it should be labour union, surely? And most likely "trade union"? In British politics, the phrase "labour/labor union" is virtually never used. Using U.S. terminology in this context is a little grinding! VivaEmilyDavies 00:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It looks like somebody has fixed this inconsistency. Good work. -- Yama 03:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Could some one change "70 miles" to "112km (70 miles)".

The article isn't protected. You can make this change yourself.-gadfium 09:06, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

picture

That flight-map picture is a mess! or maybe thats the point to it--Wonderfool t(c)e) 11:13, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Agree, it should be deleted, as it serves no use. Astrotrain 18:11, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Re-installed the map, as it shows the extent, in a visual perspective, of the ariline coverage based on it's route network in Europe, maybe next time some one would like to come up with a better argument then "is a mess", and "serves no use" before removing it from the page. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 18:22, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• It serves no use because it is not a map of Ryanair's destinations in Europe. Mainly because no destinations are listed, or identifable from the map. It is just a map of Europe with a lot of red lines. If you were looking to see if Ryanair flew to a particular destination you could not use this map to find the answer. Therefore it should be removed. In any case, it is listed for deletion. Astrotrain 18:28, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Once again it is used to represnt the coverage of their route netowk in europe, i never said that it is used to determin what cities are liked to what cities for the purpose fo booking a flight, or should be used in that way what so ever, and when it does get delete then it cam be removed at that time, but since it hasnt their is no need to delete untill that time. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 18:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• It doesn't represent the coverage of their network if it cannot be used to identify coverage. This could be any airline's route map. In any case, Ryanair change their destinations so often, it cannot possibly be accurate. Astrotrain 18:45, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

It usless in saying anything to you, so i'll just revert you when you remove the map. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 18:48, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The sound ground for removing this particular image is that it's not under a completely free license. However, I do not see how the image 'serves no use'. It shows the coverage of the network. Ryanair add new routes every few months so it's not hard to keep it accurate. Worldtraveller 19:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• The map is not accurate enough to give a reliable indication of coverage of its flights. It would be better to link to the page on their website [1] which is far superior. Astrotrain 19:39, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Flight 296

I removed the paragraph alleging that Ryanair was criticised for a number of things following the engine fire on this flight - the investigation report doesn't substantiate the claims made. Worldtraveller 19:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• The report states clearly that the crew struggled to open doors, and passengers were evacuated on to the burning wing. And the media critised Ryanair's handling of the affair (and the practice of having flight crew pay for their training, security passes etc). Although the air investigation board did make recommendations to change training practices. Astrotrain 19:42, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

The report didn't say the airline was at fault, and also said the evacuation was completed within 90 seconds, and that it was a 'text book' operation. The paragraph I removed said that the report slated the airline, not the press, so it was inaccurate. Anyway, I think detail and media coverage of this is better off in the Ryanair Flight 296 article - links to relevant articles are essential either way if we're going to claim the press criticised. Worldtraveller 20:04, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Flight 685

I was a bit surprised when I read this entry, as I clearly remembered this alleged hi-jacking as "false news". I did some investigation and could not find any evidence of a hijacking attempt apart from the newspaper articles the days immediately after the incident. The rumor seems to have originated from a Reuters article, quoting anonymous Swedish intelligence sources, and from there it spread to media all over the world. This was later denied by the same Swedish intelligence organisation (SÄPO), and after about a month of investigation the hijack charges were dropped and the man was only prosecuted for "attempt to bring a weapon onboard a plane" (which he insisted was a mistake). It seems that these later developments were only reported in Swedish and Norwegian media, but never made it to the international press. See for example this and this article in major Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. --Sfrey 10:48, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

5 December 2005 reversion by 83.70.34.70

Hi, I reverted an edit of 83.70.34.70 to the previous version by 213.94.247.132 - 83.70.34.70's edit seemed to be an (accidental?) uncommented reversion that removed info (added hubs) and reintroduced bugs (e.g. lack of hubs in the infobox.) Please discuss here if not accidental. Blorg 15:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It was'nt accidental - the previous version seemd to be a kind of PR version of Ryanair's very mixed early history. For example most people don't realise that Ryanair was'nt founded by the Ryan family - it was a co-incidence that it was set up by a guy with the same family name (Christy Ryan).

It also contained lots of errors about things like for example, traffic numbers (the PR version mixes up charter and scheduled traffic numbers - Ryanair used to perform lots of charter flights for tour operators in the late '80's) and about its financial performance (dreadful until 1991 /1992).

It also was also very incomplete regarding Michael O'Leary's role. After all he did'nt become Chief Executive until January 1994 - after Ryanair had been very successfully turned-around. His genius seems to have been that when he did subsequently take the helm (of what was by then a small but very profitable regional airline with a great operational formula) that he was able to build this company into a large, world class operation. Mind you he was helped by a really great management team (Howard Millar - Finance (1992), Charlie Cliften - Ops (1986), Mick Hickey -Engineering (1987) and David O'Brien (1992) - Ops in particular and later, post-flotation, Michael Cawley (1998) and Jim Callaghan (2000) ) who don't seem to either seek, or to get anything like, the public recognmition that their superb achievements in building-up Ryanair appear to deserve.

So why not fix any bugs (eg. hubs) rather than reverting to a less informed version?

Quality

Over the last few weeks, this article has seriously declined in quality, with large sections being rewritten without sources cited and with numerous spelling and grammatical errors. I don't have time to fix it up right now but I hope those who helped to elevate it to featured status might be able to work on getting it back up to its previous quality. Otherwise, I fear it may be in danger of being FARCed. Worldtraveller 23:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Added Incident

Added Rome Fiumicino incident from September last year, though I haven't been able to find out the flight number. --DrFod 14:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)