More Attention for Ryanair

Ryanair is at it again with their “any publicity is good publicity”, and yet I am contributing to it as well. Ryanair first made it into the news when it was reported that they had requested Boeing to design a bathroom with a place to slide a credit card. There has been no news saying whether Ryanair will truly go through with charging fliers to use the restroom, but logic says it won’t happen.

Yesterday the no-frills airline announced that they would scrap the idea of a “fat tax” on obese fliers. Their “logic” was that by charging customers that weigh more and take up more space that non-obese customers would be able to have a cheaper airfare.
Ryanair came up with for ideas how to charge.

1. Charge per kg over 130kg/20 stone (male) and 100kg/15 stone (female);
2. Charge per inch for every waist inch over 45 inch (male) and 40 inch (female);
3. Charge for every point in excess of 40 points on the Body Mass Index (+30 points is obese);
4. Charge for a second seat if passengers’ waist touches both armrests simultaneously.

Now the fun part. Ryanair’s spokesman Stephen McNamara said, “”Over 30,000 Ryanair passengers called for a fat tax’ for very large passengers. However, as all passengers will soon be checking in online we have no way of collecting a fat tax’ without disrupting our un-rivalled punctuality and our 25-minute turnarounds.”
Is that the real reason? No, Ryanair was maybe debating these ideas, but the real result they wanted was to achieve publicity and to achieve customers thinking that they are indeed a deep discount airline. The real result though is that if they did go through implementing these new grand policies that fliers would not put up with it and result in a severe lost in business. Although I could be wrong, Ryanair did carry 12% more passengers in April 2009 than April 2008.

Here are the other ideas and poll results for possible charges Ryanair was considering:
1. 29% – Excess fees for very overweight passengers,
2. 25% – €1 for toilet paper – with O’Leary’s face on it,
3. 24% – €3 to smoke in a converted toilet cubicle,
4. 14% – Annual subscription to access Ryanair.com,
5. 8% – €2 “corkage” fee for passengers who bring their own food on board.

What do you think, is Ryanair truly trying to keep airfare cheap, or are they just becoming one of the best nickel and dime airlines out there?

Statement and figures are from Ryanair.com