Budget airline 'wants passengers to stand'

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

By MSN NZ Travel staff

Budget Irish airline Ryanair wants to make passengers stand up during its flights so it can cram more people on board.

Instead of regular seats, passengers will be allocated stools where they can perch with seatbelts around their waists, the UK's Daily Mail newspaper reports.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary is holding discussions with US plane manufacturer Boeing about designing a plane with standing room.

The move is expected to save the air carrier 20 percent in costs and allow it to fit 30 per cent more passengers on its planes.

It is just the latest in a series of extreme cost cutting measures planned by Ryanair, which last month announced passengers will soon have to carry their own luggage up to the aeroplane.

The company is also reconsidering a controversial plan to charge customers for using bathrooms on its planes.

Have your say: what do you think of the latest cost-cutting measure by Ryanair?

More information

User comments

Why is anyone talking about saftey?! if the plane goes down your dead no matter where you are. Sitting on a stool for a short flight for 1-2 hours to save some money is a Awesome idea..*** id stand! If you opt to fly ryanair your on a budget so why not. ferrys let you sleep on deck to save money. hotels let you sleep on roof...so why are people finding this wierd is beyond me.

standing up, sitting down, doesn't matter much when the plane you're on crashes! if we were really into safety we wouldn't stash litres of flammable duty free alcohol just above our heads. people tolerate what they're use to and freak out about a bit of lateral thinking. Go the Irish!

To be honest when you add up the extra charges these so called cheap flights add (paying by credit card (not sure how else you are suposed to pay online), baggage charges, check in charges, booking fees, taxes, surcharges, plus the extra travel cost to and from the out of the way airports and the time involved) its normally better to fly with a airline advising the actual charges up front.

I regularly use Ryanair and I admit that it is as mentioned in a previous comment. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAID FOR!!! The airline offers cheap flights to European cities (I last paid £5 return to PISA, Italy including taxes - just 5 weeks ago) which is ideal in this econmic climate. The downside of this is, DON'T expect luxuy seating, free food (bring your own, its a whole lot cheaper) or good customer service. Ryanair are doing away with checkin desks and a lot of the booking prices only give you free online check-in otherwise it costs you around £40. It also costs you to check in luggage (again around £20 per bag) at the airport but again cheaper if you check it in online. As for paying to use the loo.... I am actually sorry to tell a lot of you, that you actually have to pay to use a public loo in a lot of countries here in Europe so for a low-cost airline to think of doing it, sounds pretty much norm over here for companies wanting to make cash!!!

Hey, getting a little peeved with all this tossing off at the Irish, O'Leary maybe one, but that doesn't mean they are all the same...... Michael O'Leary is a very sensible operator , as an ex- Aer Lingus baggage handler, he KNOWS when the punters are being fleeced...... this is before Ryanair came into being and the price of flights, and the quality of "service" on Aer Lingus was abysmal!!!!! strangely, they are now copying many of Ryan's economies (incidently the airline founder only died recently, and both he and O'Leary regularly used their flights....... they, as well as the pilots, at least had faith in the safety of their aircraft.......... At least he hasn't, well not yet anyway, resorted to the suggestion from Qantas that they bring back smoking on their flights!!!!!! Now THAT WOULD make me think twice before using them......

Yeh, I,ve flown more than 20 Ryanair flights, survived them all, the majority of times they have been incredibly cheap, only twice were they late (but only by 5-10 minutes) ......generally they were of reasonable standard, both in seating and service (I mean how much service do you need in a flight of 1-2 hours????) As for the Standing-stool type "seating,", why not???? these will no doubt be a cheaper option, and if people are happy with this, great!!! The majority of flights never have any safety problems, and this option for an hour or so seems not too much worse than wedging oneself on a bar stool for an hour, except that since you don't need to drink, you probably won't need to use their loos (you will soon get used to using the airport ones before leaving, and also having change in your pocket "just in case"....) and anyway they have eftpos terminal facilities available for their car hire, scratchy tickets etc, so no doubt these can be used for toilets if needed........

All i can say is that even though New Zealand only has 3 carriers servicing our domestic routes, im glad that they are all of a good standard (we hope Jetstar will improve however). None of them im sure would consider making people stand up on flights. Where is the safety aspect of this plan? Are they completely mad? Do they have any customer service at all? All the stories ive heard about them so far are crazy. People should opt to fly with other carriers.

You have to be bloody joking. I have a great fear of flying and to think that I have to sit on a stool forget it. I fly Emirates and yes they are not the cheapest but my god you cannot complain about the service or the comfort. I suppose you can't complain about the service with Ryan Air as there is none and if they have their way there will be even less. I would like to know how the idiot who suggested this is still employed. Obviously there is no respect for passengers safety thay have just proven that. More so to is if it gets passed then whoever passes it is even more of a bloody idiot.

What happens if people need to go to the loo and they didn't bring any change??? Or they can't take everything out of their bag to look for sum change because its crowded. They can't just go in a bag...can they?

As an ex aircrew member I would be appalled at RyanAir even considering such bizzare plans----Aircraft seats generally are able to withstand at least 8G force forward and trying to have Boeing sanction the rentention of a STOOL is a joke! No wonder they're not members of the International Air Transportation Association.Get real RyanAir!

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