11 ms·

Ryanair now presents you with a Recaptcha every time you search for a flight

bdfh42 15y ago
They have gone completely and utterly insane. The ONLY way they get custom is through their web site - and now they are trying to put people off. No matter what the problem was this is the wrong solution.
- toyg 15y ago
  Actually, I don't think that'll happen. Who flies with Ryanair ? People trying to save money. If their website is too easy to use, these people will peruse it for hours, trying to find out the cheaper combination of flights to go from "somewhere near Madrid" to "somewhere near Berlin". If RA raises the bar a little bit, these people will probably give up one or two queries earlier, hence picking some more "natural" route that will likely make RA a bit more money. Most customers won't think (or know) about the competition, RA has a very strong brand, so the chances that they'll just give up and go elsewhere are fairly slim, especially after having invested all that time going through captchas. Captchas are very unfriendly towards older and less computer-literate people, but those segments are more likely to go through phone or agencies anyway. (Not that I care, I stopped using RA years ago.)
  - balac 15y ago
    I have always gotten the feeling from them that they don't really want to help you find the cheapest flights. Little things like not allowing you to search for flights from all airports in a city, instead making you do multiple searches makes it hard to compare prices.
  - rafski 15y ago
    A lot of airports they fly to are in main airports for large cities, including capitals like Madrid, Dublin, possibly others.
    - arethuza 15y ago
      Don't know why you are being downvoted - while they do fly to a lot of off airports they do fly from quite a few airports, we flow with Ryanair from Edinburgh to Marrakech earlier this year and it was perfectly OK. They were the only airline flying direct and as we were only going for 3 nights we didn't want a long detour via a hub. Having said that, the Ryanair website is pure evil - the fact that the option to not buy insurance is half way down the list of countries is an example of just how devious they can be.
    - rmc 15y ago
      As well as Dublin & Madrid, they also fly direct (ish) to: Nice, London (ish. Gatwick is a big London airport), Birmingham. etc. However they do sometimes take the piss. Until recently you couldn't fly near Barcelona. Paris is still Paris (Beauvaus (sp?)). Rome, Brussles likewise. I think they once advertised flights to Copehagen, the capital of Denmark, but the flight landed in Sweden!
- rmc 15y ago
  Ryanair have always been the first to change things radically. From scrapping travel agents, scrapping in flight meals, requiring you to pay extra for checked in luggage. Each of these could be seen as "too far", and yet they have grown by leaps and bounds each time. Why would this be an different?
rolandboon 15y ago
Looks like Ryanair is trying very hard to get customers to use their website, instead of meta searchers that scrape their website. I think however, that they realize the complete opposite. Their website is now even more unusable and meta searchers still include Ryanair tickets.
kingofspain 15y ago
Though this is pretty minor in the scheme of things, I'm constantly surprised at how horrible they can purposefully make the experience and still have people clicking to them. Myself included. From every interview I've seen with MD you get the impression he despises his customers. But they still make money. I guess until someone comes along who can compete and at least pretend they give a damn then it'll continue to work. I wont pretend I know how they could do it but the moment I have another option, Ryanair have lost me for ever.
- gommm 15y ago
  Whenever I've had the choice between EasyJet and Ryanair, I've always chosen EasyJet. They're a bit more expensive but at least I don't feel as much treated as cattle.
  - paulgb 15y ago
    Ditto for Jet2 and GermanWings. It's probably cheaper overall anyway because they don't try to squeeze as much money out of you post-purchase.
  - kingofspain 15y ago
    Oh definitely. Unfortunately for where I live now, the only routes I'm interested in are Ryanair or BA. Much as I'd love to, I can't justify the 600% premium.
  - skeptical 15y ago
    Thought it depends on the destinations, length of the flight, etc. I do feel a bit treated like cattle when I travel with ryanair, I must admit. But they hold on strongly to some basic principles on their flights. For example, they are unbeatable when it comes to arriving on time. Incomparably better than any other european carrier. And of course, they have routes that are not operated by anybody else that won't ask you like 4 times more money for the flight. At the moment they don't operate the route I use the most. I find myself using a regular carrier. After picking the dates carefully I'm still spending roughly three times more than I used to. sure the service is a bit fancier but still, it's a huge difference.
cvander 15y ago
Amazing to throw away more and more usability in their platform and still retain customers because their price scheme is cheap. I guess their budget is not good enough to hire a good programer. I wonder if the CEO hire his nephew, the one with some frontpage/dreamweaver skills for the job.
- toyg 15y ago
  They just don't care about "good anything", they only care about cheap. If it was practical for them to provide only a telnet server, they would do it in a heartbeat.
macuenca 15y ago
To put people who may not know Ryanair in context: is a low-cost Irish airline that operates in Europe. You can get round trip flights starting at EUR 0.01. His CEO is a very controversial person who has been on the press for suggesting aggressive measures to make air travel even cheaper, like run flights where passengers stand during the journey, removing toilets from aircrafts and the most recent one, providing paid porn movies on board. Once, I travel Madrid-Paris with them for less than 20 euros. Most of their fleet are Boeing 737-800. Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair
- skeptical 15y ago
  > providing paid porn movies on board That's hilarious (epic?)
- tathagatadg 15y ago
  Thanks for the background. Wondering if people consider it workplace-safe ... "Oh! I was just searching for cheap tickets ... believe me, not cheap hookers! "
- kinofcain 15y ago
  They "suggest" all sorts of ridiculous crap. On the internet, we call it 'trolling'. In the case of RyanAir, they've turned trolling into a marketing strategy.
- gergles 15y ago
  Well, .01 EUR plus 'fees' (more fees than I've ever seen in my life - http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions#regulations-tableoffees http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions#regulations-t...) including a minimum 6 EUR "Admin Fee" for the privilege of buying a ticket and a 40 EUR fee if you lose or don't print a boarding pass...
  - gergles 15y ago
    Can whoever downvoted me please explain yourself? You have to pay a 6 EUR "admin fee" to get the .01 EUR fare unless you use their proprietary approved prepaid product (which, amazingly, has its own fees! - The card alone costs 6 EUR plus an extra upcharge every time you put money on it@)
codesink 15y ago
They don't like scrapers, they don't even allow links to their website without permission. From their TOS: "5. Links to this website. You may not establish and/or operate links to this website without the prior written consent of Ryanair."
- coin 15y ago
  The entire web is based off linking. If they don't want linking, then they shouldn't use HTML and HTTP. "HT" stands for Hypertext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext
- nekojima 15y ago
  If you do link to their site, what can they do? Redirect to 404 or home page for external links?
  - zokier 15y ago
    Sue you?
- gergles 15y ago
  Well, looks like HN is about to be sued into the ground. It was nice hanging out with you fine folks.
- toddmorey 15y ago
  That's fairly standard legalese for large companies. I'm not saying it makes any sense, I'm just saying I've seen it a lot. I believe this is an attempt to lay some groundwork to support the removal of links from sites that you don't want any corporate association with.
  - nekojima 15y ago
    Hopefully pg will remove the link, so HN isn't associated with Ryanair. ;-)
D_Drake 15y ago
When I opened the link I thought it was a domain squatter. Wow.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rafski 15y ago
I am the biggest Ryanair supporter, they are the best airline in Europe: they are cheap and their planes are just as comfortable as city buses but they're always on-time and cheap if you know how to book. They're actually the most punctual airline in Europe. This said, I just gave up booking a ticket with them after the third captcha. They'll scrap that stuff as soon as they notice the drop in sales.
- TorbjornLunde 15y ago
  Doesn’t also SAS and Lufthansa claim to be the most punctual airline? (Seems like different airlines are the most punctual depending on how you measure it…)
  - rmc 15y ago
    I believe Ryanair are more likely to cancel a flight if it's delayed (e.g. by snow). This may or may not be a good way to ensure that "number of flights that arrive late" is low.
- rmc 15y ago
  Exactly. Ryanair are a bus. They are as cheap as a bus, and as good quality as a bus. That's what I use them for.
- karolist 15y ago
  Ryanair is good for on time travel (advertising 90%+ on time flights last year, which, according to them beats all other carriers) but nothing more. Their staff will give you bullshit for anything over the limit, be it size or weight, no matter how minor. They actually walk around the line with carton boxes and put bags in to see if they fit. Their up-sale tactics are ugly too, if you forget your earphones during the flights - be prepared to listen to advertisements which start while you're still on the ground and continue every couple of minutes. The planes - Boeing 737-800 are shit compared to, for example Airbus A320 (which another cheap flight firm operates, called wizzair). Massive difference in cabin noise and air pressure support - you don't feel a thing in your ears when landing with A320, head exploding every time I take the 737. Please note this is not a comparison of plane manufacturers, I believe these two plane models are fairly different in their age and technologies used to manufacture - I'm merely stating that Ryanair uses worse planes than other cheap flight firms.
valjavec 15y ago
And they serve Google Ads when you search for a flight. Unbelivable.
- myared 15y ago
  While it's crazy to think that you'd want to drive people away, it's probably rather controlled. The ads (1) open in a new window, (2) Ryanair knows that no one is going to beat them on price, and (3) Ryanair can block any company that they think is a threat from showing ads. Some governments would be served well by cutting costs to the absolute bare minimum and increasing non-tax revenue streams.
- blahpro 15y ago
  It’s not that much different from flying with them. The cabin is laden with ads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ryanair_B737-800_Cabin.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ryanair_B737-800_Cabin.jpg
stef25 15y ago
The entire Ryanair experience is painful: airports far out of the city center, baggage fees, a crew / staff that cuts you zero slack and now the website. They know their business, people will put up with a lot if it saves them money and that's what Ryanair is good at.
- marquis 15y ago
  I flew from Spain to Morocco with RyanAir, the hassle was so great (getting a bus an hour out of the city), and the pilot seemed to be in training considering how the wings were waggling on approach to land (no wind). Never flown again with them since, I'll pay the extra euro for Vueling, EasyJet or the big carriers every time.
myared 15y ago
For those who haven't read the Ryanair story, it's pretty remarkable. The Ryan family had a small commuter flight business in Ireland (what is Ryanair today) and a large, profitable business leasing planes to airlines in the opposite hemisphere during peak demand. When the latter business was ready to IPO, it went really, really badly and the Ryan family had taken out massive loans throwing their entire fortune into question. They appointed a family friend, Michael O'Leary, as CEO of Ryanair and made a deal with him to give him 10% (I think) of all profits. O'Leary came to the US, studied what Southwest was doing, and took it to the extreme. He went on to become one of the most successful CEOs in Europe. Knowing the story, my reaction to this headline is: wow, through testing, they figured out that people buy the ticket rather than wanting to fill out the CAPTCHA. Great read: http://www.amazon.com/Ryanair-Story-Controversial-Low-Cost-Airline/dp/1845132939/ http://www.amazon.com/Ryanair-Story-Controversial-Low-Cost-A...
- ticks 15y ago
  Interesting. Low frills airlines don't like price comparison websites, so the CAPTCHA is likely there to stop spiders. If one of these airlines has a free seat sale then bargain hunters are on the case before regular customers have a chance. Those bargain hunters - who use these third party websites to find cheap tickets - probably aren't the target audience for the sales.
AJ007 15y ago
That's almost as good as Amtrak. You have to confirm your email address every time you buy a ticket, even after you've logged in to your account. And the form blocks paste, so you get to type it out each time.
- davidblair 15y ago
  I've never run into this issue and have booked many tickets (on the northeast line).
AlexMuir 15y ago
This reminded me to finish a post I drafted a while back: http://www.alexmuir.com/2011/12/stupid-is-the-new-business-class/ http://www.alexmuir.com/2011/12/stupid-is-the-new-business-c...

They have gone completely and utterly insane. The ONLY way they get custom is through their web site - and now they are trying to put people off. No matter what the problem was this is the wrong solution.

toyg 15y ago
Actually, I don't think that'll happen. Who flies with Ryanair ? People trying to save money. If their website is too easy to use, these people will peruse it for hours, trying to find out the cheaper combination of flights to go from "somewhere near Madrid" to "somewhere near Berlin". If RA raises the bar a little bit, these people will probably give up one or two queries earlier, hence picking some more "natural" route that will likely make RA a bit more money. Most customers won't think (or know) about the competition, RA has a very strong brand, so the chances that they'll just give up and go elsewhere are fairly slim, especially after having invested all that time going through captchas. Captchas are very unfriendly towards older and less computer-literate people, but those segments are more likely to go through phone or agencies anyway. (Not that I care, I stopped using RA years ago.)
- balac 15y ago
  I have always gotten the feeling from them that they don't really want to help you find the cheapest flights. Little things like not allowing you to search for flights from all airports in a city, instead making you do multiple searches makes it hard to compare prices.
- rafski 15y ago
  A lot of airports they fly to are in main airports for large cities, including capitals like Madrid, Dublin, possibly others.
  - arethuza 15y ago
    Don't know why you are being downvoted - while they do fly to a lot of off airports they do fly from quite a few airports, we flow with Ryanair from Edinburgh to Marrakech earlier this year and it was perfectly OK. They were the only airline flying direct and as we were only going for 3 nights we didn't want a long detour via a hub. Having said that, the Ryanair website is pure evil - the fact that the option to not buy insurance is half way down the list of countries is an example of just how devious they can be.
  - rmc 15y ago
    As well as Dublin & Madrid, they also fly direct (ish) to: Nice, London (ish. Gatwick is a big London airport), Birmingham. etc. However they do sometimes take the piss. Until recently you couldn't fly near Barcelona. Paris is still Paris (Beauvaus (sp?)). Rome, Brussles likewise. I think they once advertised flights to Copehagen, the capital of Denmark, but the flight landed in Sweden!
rmc 15y ago
Ryanair have always been the first to change things radically. From scrapping travel agents, scrapping in flight meals, requiring you to pay extra for checked in luggage. Each of these could be seen as "too far", and yet they have grown by leaps and bounds each time. Why would this be an different?

rolandboon 15y ago

Looks like Ryanair is trying very hard to get customers to use their website, instead of meta searchers that scrape their website. I think however, that they realize the complete opposite. Their website is now even more unusable and meta searchers still include Ryanair tickets.

kingofspain 15y ago

Though this is pretty minor in the scheme of things, I'm constantly surprised at how horrible they can purposefully make the experience and still have people clicking to them. Myself included. From every interview I've seen with MD you get the impression he despises his customers. But they still make money. I guess until someone comes along who can compete and at least pretend they give a damn then it'll continue to work. I wont pretend I know how they could do it but the moment I have another option, Ryanair have lost me for ever.

gommm 15y ago
Whenever I've had the choice between EasyJet and Ryanair, I've always chosen EasyJet. They're a bit more expensive but at least I don't feel as much treated as cattle.
- paulgb 15y ago
  Ditto for Jet2 and GermanWings. It's probably cheaper overall anyway because they don't try to squeeze as much money out of you post-purchase.
- kingofspain 15y ago
  Oh definitely. Unfortunately for where I live now, the only routes I'm interested in are Ryanair or BA. Much as I'd love to, I can't justify the 600% premium.
- skeptical 15y ago
  Thought it depends on the destinations, length of the flight, etc. I do feel a bit treated like cattle when I travel with ryanair, I must admit. But they hold on strongly to some basic principles on their flights. For example, they are unbeatable when it comes to arriving on time. Incomparably better than any other european carrier. And of course, they have routes that are not operated by anybody else that won't ask you like 4 times more money for the flight. At the moment they don't operate the route I use the most. I find myself using a regular carrier. After picking the dates carefully I'm still spending roughly three times more than I used to. sure the service is a bit fancier but still, it's a huge difference.

cvander 15y ago

Amazing to throw away more and more usability in their platform and still retain customers because their price scheme is cheap. I guess their budget is not good enough to hire a good programer. I wonder if the CEO hire his nephew, the one with some frontpage/dreamweaver skills for the job.

toyg 15y ago
They just don't care about "good anything", they only care about cheap. If it was practical for them to provide only a telnet server, they would do it in a heartbeat.

macuenca 15y ago

To put people who may not know Ryanair in context: is a low-cost Irish airline that operates in Europe. You can get round trip flights starting at EUR 0.01. His CEO is a very controversial person who has been on the press for suggesting aggressive measures to make air travel even cheaper, like run flights where passengers stand during the journey, removing toilets from aircrafts and the most recent one, providing paid porn movies on board. Once, I travel Madrid-Paris with them for less than 20 euros. Most of their fleet are Boeing 737-800. Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair

skeptical 15y ago
> providing paid porn movies on board That's hilarious (epic?)
tathagatadg 15y ago
Thanks for the background. Wondering if people consider it workplace-safe ... "Oh! I was just searching for cheap tickets ... believe me, not cheap hookers! "
kinofcain 15y ago
They "suggest" all sorts of ridiculous crap. On the internet, we call it 'trolling'. In the case of RyanAir, they've turned trolling into a marketing strategy.
gergles 15y ago
Well, .01 EUR plus 'fees' (more fees than I've ever seen in my life - http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions#regulations-tableoffees http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions#regulations-t...) including a minimum 6 EUR "Admin Fee" for the privilege of buying a ticket and a 40 EUR fee if you lose or don't print a boarding pass...
- gergles 15y ago
  Can whoever downvoted me please explain yourself? You have to pay a 6 EUR "admin fee" to get the .01 EUR fare unless you use their proprietary approved prepaid product (which, amazingly, has its own fees! - The card alone costs 6 EUR plus an extra upcharge every time you put money on it@)

codesink 15y ago

They don't like scrapers, they don't even allow links to their website without permission. From their TOS: "5. Links to this website. You may not establish and/or operate links to this website without the prior written consent of Ryanair."

coin 15y ago
The entire web is based off linking. If they don't want linking, then they shouldn't use HTML and HTTP. "HT" stands for Hypertext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext
nekojima 15y ago
If you do link to their site, what can they do? Redirect to 404 or home page for external links?
- zokier 15y ago
  Sue you?
gergles 15y ago
Well, looks like HN is about to be sued into the ground. It was nice hanging out with you fine folks.
toddmorey 15y ago
That's fairly standard legalese for large companies. I'm not saying it makes any sense, I'm just saying I've seen it a lot. I believe this is an attempt to lay some groundwork to support the removal of links from sites that you don't want any corporate association with.
- nekojima 15y ago
  Hopefully pg will remove the link, so HN isn't associated with Ryanair. ;-)

D_Drake 15y ago

When I opened the link I thought it was a domain squatter. Wow.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

rafski 15y ago

I am the biggest Ryanair supporter, they are the best airline in Europe: they are cheap and their planes are just as comfortable as city buses but they're always on-time and cheap if you know how to book. They're actually the most punctual airline in Europe. This said, I just gave up booking a ticket with them after the third captcha. They'll scrap that stuff as soon as they notice the drop in sales.

TorbjornLunde 15y ago
Doesn’t also SAS and Lufthansa claim to be the most punctual airline? (Seems like different airlines are the most punctual depending on how you measure it…)
- rmc 15y ago
  I believe Ryanair are more likely to cancel a flight if it's delayed (e.g. by snow). This may or may not be a good way to ensure that "number of flights that arrive late" is low.
rmc 15y ago
Exactly. Ryanair are a bus. They are as cheap as a bus, and as good quality as a bus. That's what I use them for.
karolist 15y ago
Ryanair is good for on time travel (advertising 90%+ on time flights last year, which, according to them beats all other carriers) but nothing more. Their staff will give you bullshit for anything over the limit, be it size or weight, no matter how minor. They actually walk around the line with carton boxes and put bags in to see if they fit. Their up-sale tactics are ugly too, if you forget your earphones during the flights - be prepared to listen to advertisements which start while you're still on the ground and continue every couple of minutes. The planes - Boeing 737-800 are shit compared to, for example Airbus A320 (which another cheap flight firm operates, called wizzair). Massive difference in cabin noise and air pressure support - you don't feel a thing in your ears when landing with A320, head exploding every time I take the 737. Please note this is not a comparison of plane manufacturers, I believe these two plane models are fairly different in their age and technologies used to manufacture - I'm merely stating that Ryanair uses worse planes than other cheap flight firms.

valjavec 15y ago

And they serve Google Ads when you search for a flight. Unbelivable.

myared 15y ago
While it's crazy to think that you'd want to drive people away, it's probably rather controlled. The ads (1) open in a new window, (2) Ryanair knows that no one is going to beat them on price, and (3) Ryanair can block any company that they think is a threat from showing ads. Some governments would be served well by cutting costs to the absolute bare minimum and increasing non-tax revenue streams.
blahpro 15y ago
It’s not that much different from flying with them. The cabin is laden with ads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ryanair_B737-800_Cabin.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ryanair_B737-800_Cabin.jpg

stef25 15y ago

The entire Ryanair experience is painful: airports far out of the city center, baggage fees, a crew / staff that cuts you zero slack and now the website. They know their business, people will put up with a lot if it saves them money and that's what Ryanair is good at.

marquis 15y ago
I flew from Spain to Morocco with RyanAir, the hassle was so great (getting a bus an hour out of the city), and the pilot seemed to be in training considering how the wings were waggling on approach to land (no wind). Never flown again with them since, I'll pay the extra euro for Vueling, EasyJet or the big carriers every time.

myared 15y ago

For those who haven't read the Ryanair story, it's pretty remarkable. The Ryan family had a small commuter flight business in Ireland (what is Ryanair today) and a large, profitable business leasing planes to airlines in the opposite hemisphere during peak demand. When the latter business was ready to IPO, it went really, really badly and the Ryan family had taken out massive loans throwing their entire fortune into question. They appointed a family friend, Michael O'Leary, as CEO of Ryanair and made a deal with him to give him 10% (I think) of all profits. O'Leary came to the US, studied what Southwest was doing, and took it to the extreme. He went on to become one of the most successful CEOs in Europe. Knowing the story, my reaction to this headline is: wow, through testing, they figured out that people buy the ticket rather than wanting to fill out the CAPTCHA. Great read: http://www.amazon.com/Ryanair-Story-Controversial-Low-Cost-Airline/dp/1845132939/ http://www.amazon.com/Ryanair-Story-Controversial-Low-Cost-A...

ticks 15y ago
Interesting. Low frills airlines don't like price comparison websites, so the CAPTCHA is likely there to stop spiders. If one of these airlines has a free seat sale then bargain hunters are on the case before regular customers have a chance. Those bargain hunters - who use these third party websites to find cheap tickets - probably aren't the target audience for the sales.

AJ007 15y ago

That's almost as good as Amtrak. You have to confirm your email address every time you buy a ticket, even after you've logged in to your account. And the form blocks paste, so you get to type it out each time.

davidblair 15y ago
I've never run into this issue and have booked many tickets (on the northeast line).

AlexMuir 15y ago

This reminded me to finish a post I drafted a while back: http://www.alexmuir.com/2011/12/stupid-is-the-new-business-class/ http://www.alexmuir.com/2011/12/stupid-is-the-new-business-c...