Ryanair changed my flight times and they don't suit me

Ryanair are disingenuous in how they go about it though. The following happened to me:

Booked a flight home at a sensible time, e.g. 6pm (fine). Ryanair then changed it to a not so sensible 11pm, and naturally offered acceptance of the change or a refund (fine). But Ryanair then introduced a 4pm flight…
 
Gordon Gekko said:
Booked a flight home at a sensible time, e.g. 6pm (fine). Ryanair then changed it to a not so sensible 11pm, and naturally offered acceptance of the change or a refund (fine). But Ryanair then introduced a 4pm flight…
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That's an interesting tactic. Most people would keep the original flight as they are stuck.
Then they advertise the appealing time and get new customers to fill that.

If they kept the original flight at 6 PM and put a new flight at 11PM they probably wouldn't sell that one.
This way they might get to sell two sets of seats advertised at popular time slots and probably use the same plane.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
It is important to realise that if you book a long time in advance, the time is only provisional.
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I always get a confirmation of my booking by email after I have made it with Ryanair. It certainly isn't highlighted that this is a tentative, provisional or ghost flight and subject to change. How many people are aware of this?

So, Ryanair, at the start of every year sit down and put these notional flights down on paper. Then enter in to negotiations with the various airports.
Collect a load of money from us by offering different prices and interesting flight times. When they are collecting all this money they know that they might not be able to honor those flights. Then they play a silly game.....don't send anyone an email because it will cause Ryanair problems......let the customer wait.

What Gordon said in an earlier post is dreadful. His 6 p.m. flight is cancelled, then they offer him an 11 p.m. flight. After he accepts, they introduce a 4 p.m. flight.

I browse for flights when I log in to Ryanair. I scroll through the month. Look at each day, look at the flight times being offered on that day, look at the prices. When I have chosen the hotel I look at the hotel prices, the distance and cost of transfers etc. I then put the package together....flights, hotels, transfers.

I want Ryanair to send me an email telling me when flights have changed so I can plan accordingly. I find Dr. Strangelove's comment so condescending when he says....."this has the potential to cause even more confusion with customers, not less."
 
Brendan Burgess said:
They probably should highlight it when you are booking a long time in advance that times are provisional.
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There's more to it than that Brendan because pricing is also based on the time of day.
Once you put a specific time up and charge a different amount for that, then in my view that is a definition of a different product that has been sold and it isn't interchangeable with a flight in a different slot.

Ryanair set the prices by time slot and they set them differently. A flight moved 2 to 3 hours is considered a major change. Vouchers, for example are required to be provided if a flight is delayed 2 hours at the airport. People can reasonably be expected to allow for 2-3 hours delay to meet plans to go to e.g. an event or a meeting but beyond that is not practical.
You can't be expected to block off an entire day for a flight each side of a trip, you'd only get a Saturday on a weekend away, it isn't practical.

The issue on here is if you advertise a flight that someone can use and then later change it to one that they can't (over a 4 hour move in this case) - the airline should offer a refund as soon as they update their schedule and change the advertised flight time. This allows the customer to get their money back and make alternative plans.

It isn't acceptable to delay that and claim the change is provisional or it might change back - if that's the case why would they change the flight time on the booking site and in their app. Someone could be left in a position where they can't book an alternative flight.
 
Bronco Lane said:
Why should I have to sit tight?

Aer Lingus fly to Palma, my second choice of airline, but it is a choice I can make ......now.
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You have the absolute right to take or reject my advice as you prefer.

Have you factored in the possibility that Aer Lingus may also change their flight times before next April?
 
losttheplot said:
This is from 2010, Ryanair's response was based on EU guidelines they should give a minimum of 14 days notice of a schedule change.
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The EU guidelines cover at what point the airline has to pay compensation and cover the cost of re-routing rather than refunding. I seriously doubt they are designed to enable airlines to withhold information about changes (and a refund) until 14 days before the flight.

Under their own terms and conditions, Ryanair have a 6 hour window around the advertised time (3 hours before, 3 hours after).
6 hours is plenty to cover all the reasonable scheduling issues.

If the flight times are completely provisional beyond even that, then don't list them at booking times in advance, list them as 'any time' on the day.

Otherwise it is false advertising, because Ryanair list flights on the same day to the same destination at different prices.

If they change the flight time by more than 3 hours they need to refund people and to claim that they are selling tickets at the new time, but the change isn't official, is patently ridiculous.

Anyway, I've said enough to try to improve Ryanair customer service at this point, my take away from this is that I won't book anything time sensitive with Ryanair.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
So which airline will you book with so?

It would be interesting to get comparable information for other airlines.

Brendan
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About 4 years ago I booked flights with Aer Lingus to Berlin about 8 months in advance. I must have received about 10 emails informing of changes to the flight time, so much I eventually ignored them. The changes were all minor. Anyway the actual flight time ended up as the original booking.
 
losttheplot said:
About 4 years ago I booked flights with Aer Lingus to Berlin about 8 months in advance. I must have received about 10 emails informing of changes to the flight time, so much I eventually ignored them. The changes were all minor. Anyway the actual flight time ended up as the original booking.
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So you were kept informed and presumably you could have requested a refund if it was more than 3 hour delay, which is what OP is complaining about?

I have no issue with flexibility around delays etc. but there has to be some limit and that is defined by Ryanair as 3 hours.
If they want to change the departure time more than 3 hours then refund, if they aren't sure about any change then just leave the time as it is.

Brendan Burgess said:
So which airline will you book with so?

It would be interesting to get comparable information for other airlines.
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Maybe it has been a race to the bottom and they are all as bad as each other but my experience is that Ryanair are particularly 'efficient' in cutting costs, someone has to pay for those one way or another, it is usually a cost of inconvenience to the customer.

The post by Gordon where a 6PM flight was moved to 11PM and then after people accepted the changes a new 4PM flight was introduced, is particularly efficient in terms of selling two plane loads of seats in similar popular time slots, with just one plane. But very inconvenient to the people now boarding at 11PM on a flight. The plane departs at 4 (advertised at a popular time, leaves at that time) lands in Dublin at 6 or 7, returns with passengers and departs again at 11 (unpopular time but advertised as leaving at a popular time and so the plane is full).

My experience of delays with Ryanair over the last year has definitely put me in the camp where they are 'too cheap' (in euro) and 'too expensive' (in my time).
 
My flights were once cancelled and I received no email. That was during covid, summer 2021. I discovered the cancellation when I went on Ryanair website. I was trying to see if I would be better flying some other day and was surprised that there seem to be no availability left. I suspected then that they had cancelled their flights for that destination at that point. When I managed to get in contact with them, I was told it had been cancelled. When I asked why I hadn't received an email, I was told it had just been cancelled and immediately received the email. So I don't know how the emails are sent out.
 
I asked a friend of mine who books about 20 flights a year in advance and this was his response

It happens a lot when you book a long way in advance.

Lufthansa does the same so does Arr Lingus so I think they are all the same.

To their credit if you fly with Ryanair you are far less likely to have your flight cancelled and their on time arrival is reliable
 
Brendan Burgess said:
It happens a lot when you book a long way in advance.
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Do Lufthansa and Aer Lingus change the flight time by more than 3 hours and not notify customers/allow a refund even though they are advertising and selling tickets at the new time? @losttheplot is suggesting Aer Lingus are pretty transparent to the point of the updates being annoying.
 
Odea said:
Why are they promoting flights for next summer that are only provisional?
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The flights are real, it's the times that are provisional. That said, if no one books a ticket for a particular flight then maybe it won't happen!
 
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