Ryanair recently raised its online checking fees by 20%. Since December 1st, passengers who check in online will have to pay 6€ per flight (5€ previously), what means 4€ more for a round trip for two people.
Ok. We all know that the business model of a low cost is to provide as less free service as possible for the price of a ticket and sell them separately with a high margin, what helps them to keep their fare as low as possible for people who don’t want these services. There’s no problem with that : passengers know what flying a low cost means and that’s impossible to have one’s cake and eat it.
But sometimes those practices are closer to intelecutal fraud. For instance, there’s often no alternative to online check in at Ryanair, what makes the related fee mandatory. Intelectual honestry would make airlines integrate the fee in the ticket price instead of deceiving customers but it’s obviously not something some airlines care about.
Maybe it’s high time lawmakers care about what looks like low fares but is actually more like racketeering and comtempt toward customers.
