Ryanair is again milking the headlines, with the threat of charging overweight passengers for an additional seat.  A Ryanair survey has found that most client would prefer the option of charging extra for a second seat for fat people, rather than any other possible charge.  

We think that the way they are doing this, through a survey, with very dubious questions, to indicate there clients preferences, is a bad point to start.  The survey participants were asked, for the chance of winning 1000 Eur, which of the following would you like to introduce charges for?  Charging overweight passengers, brining back smoking (in a smoking cabin), Charging for the toilet, charging those who choose to bring there own food on board, rather than being over charged by Ryanair, or charging for access to the Ryanair web site.

Of the 5 options, I would guess the least worst would be to charge for access to Ryanair.com, as this would be a self tax, that would immediately put off 100s of first time users, or infrequent travellers.  On the grounds that if this were the case I doubt very much that Ryanair would go for it, the next worst option would be the Fat charge option.  Does this constitute a vailid survey though?  I also have a concern that we were not given the option of being able to leave any contact details, meaning that the chance of winning a prize would be difficult, and considering that the survey was run by a marketing agency, which does not advertise surveys as part of the options they offer.  I guess we have to wait for Ryan air to announce how the results were collated and who won the prise.

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said: “We are delighted with the number of votes cast to date and a little surprised with how the vote has gone so far.”  We here are Andrics.com, are not so surprised, and think this is just another attempt to grab headlines.  

It remains to be seen that if a person did purchase a second ticket, for weight reasons, if they would be able to reserve that seat next to them if it was for example near the front or an aisle seat, if some one else wanted it – and if the Cabin Crew would intervene, or just take the normal attitude to passenger seat disputes, of leave it to the passengers to sort it out amongst each other.

We also think that the survey questions could have been a lot more imaginative, and included people who turn up late, or charging extra for extra hand luggage, or as normal, people who turn up late with too much hand luggage.   

Ryanair, are yet to publish the results of the Survey.

Until next time if you have any questions or comments, drop me a line: andrew@andrics.com