You bought a cheap ticket from Ryanair. Arrived at the airport a few hours early. Passed all the checks and even found the right gate. Sit down near the boarding gate and wait for the announcement of the start of boarding.
Are you surprised to see a line to board when you and other passengers have boarding passes in hand? Indeed, why stand in line if everyone should be boarded, right? How can you not board a plane when you have boarding passes in hand and are standing next to the gate. Or is it possible to not get on the plane?
100 seats and 105 passengers. How is that possible?
It turns out that everything is very simple: as many know, for 100 seats on the plane, the airline sells 105 tickets. Why is that? Very simple - someone cancelled the flight, someone changed the departure date, someone did not make it in time. Simple marketing. However, what happens if suddenly all 105 passengers show up for the flight? In a reputable airline, 5 passengers will be offered to board the next flight. Perhaps with an upgrade; perhaps with partial compensation. That is, in 99% of cases, you will fly to your destination. But not with Ryanair.
What will happen if all passengers show up for the flight of the wonderful airline Ryanair?
The tickets indicate the takeoff time and the end of boarding time. For example, 12:00 - end of boarding and 12:30 - takeoff. A decent airline will start boarding at 11:00, maybe at 11:30 and calmly board everyone on the plane in 30-40 minutes. But Ryanair is faced with an interesting situation - there are more passengers than seats on the plane. What to do? Board the passengers on the next flight? - Losses. Or maybe start boarding 10 minutes before its official end? For example, at 11:50. And now we see, guaranteed, that the last 30-40 passengers are boarding after the end of boarding. We are a good company - we will allow them to do this, but not everyone. And the last 5-7 people will not board. And they won’t board not because they were late, not because they weren’t at the right gate on time, but because the company forced them to break a simple rule – to board on time.
A little trick that saves airlines millions and makes customers nervous.
100% condemnation and 0% understanding?
And so you missed the plane due to the airline's fault that it "accidentally" started boarding a little late. You go and look for the airline's counter at the airport, but this counter doesn't exist. Yes, it happens. You find the counter that serves Ryanair, where they tell you that it's your fault that you're not on the plane. If you want to keep your return ticket, you have to pay from 100 euros (and the ticket cost 30 euros roundtrip).
So don't judge the people lining up to board. Because yes, not many will board. Well, many, but not all. Draw your own conclusions.