You can fly for free with Ryanair. No kidding! Had we flown from Monday to Monday, our flight would have cost nothing, nada, zilch!

Apart from:

• Airport Taxes: variable; € 19.00 in this case
• Luggage: € 20.00 for one item
• Airport Check-In: € 10.00 (yes: you HAVE to take the airport check-in option if you have luggage).
• Oh, and if you have the great idea to pay by credit card: € 5.00 per person and leg.

And there are those 15 “non-poolable” kilos per suitcase… That’s per person, mind you: it doesn’t matter that you are a family of four and have booked three suitcases. 2 X 14 Kg + 1 X 17 Kg = € 30.00 surcharge.

Simply book three suitcases for the same person, I hear you mutter.. AHAAH, gotcha: 3 X suitcases <> 3 X € 20.00. A person carrying 3 suitcases will be charged a whopping € 100.00 (which excludes future hospital costs to treat the subsequent hernia)! Mr O’Leary has got EVERYTHING worked out!

It’s manageable on the outbound flight, if you just happen to own one of those dreaded bathroom scales. But how many hotel’s amenities include a scale? How exactly are you then expected to spread 44.3 Kg of dirty washing over 3 suitcases? Glad they didn’t inspect our carry-on luggage too thoroughly..

For a brief period in my life, I envisaged becoming an air traffic controller.

Approximately around the time when I realized I would never be flying Jumbos for Swissair and just before I decided to become a neurosurgeon.

I believe I may have made the right choice after all:

I hope DBW doesn’t see this one..

What happens when you try to land an A320 in the midst of a storm (actual footage from Hamburg Airport, Mar 1, 2008):

For you non-IT readers out there, a “change” is a planned interruption within an IT infrastructure.

We usually perform such actions when everyone is asleep or partaking in “other” activities.  The idea being, of course, that the user impact is kept as small as possible.

Ryanair seems to take a different approach:

Ryanair.com Flight Reservation System Down-22-25 Feb 08 inc.

From 22:00 hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008 the Ryanair internet and call centre booking system will be down because of the changeover to a new flight booking system.

Important Customer Information:

All flights between 22:00 hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008 will operate as normal

New Bookings cannot be made on Ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre between 22:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008

Flight Changes (date/time/route) cannot be made on Ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre between 22:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008 .

Review Existing Booking - passengers will not be able to review their existing booking details on Ryanair.com or via a Ryanair call centre between 22:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008.

Online Check-in – passengers will not be able to check-in online between 01:00hrs on the 22nd February until 23:00hrs on the 25th February 2008. Passengers traveling on the 23/24/25 February who are unable to check-in online can check-in at the airport and will not be charged the airport check-in fee.

Please note:

The Ryanair website: Destination Information, Travel Questions, Car, Hotel and Insurance booking facilities will be available during the entire changeover/upgrade period.

Wonder how they got that one through the review board!

A tribute to the guys who are doing the job I originally wanted to do:

Humans never cease to amaze me!

Let’s say you manage an airport; oh, nothing fancy: four gates, 20 movements per day and two check-in counters.

A waiting lounge with a capacity of 150 passengers.

Pretty easy right? You simply make sure there is never more than 1 aircraft on the tarmac at any time. Ok, maybe two: they’re never completely full. Result: small(ish) queues and nearly everyone finds a place to park his/her butt (after all, most pax were picked up 2-3 hours before departure).

If you’re incompetent (or a sadist), you cluster your departures: 4 flights, then 2 hours of inactivity, then 4 flights, then 3 hours of inactivity, then another 4 flights….

Then you can watch all these people queuing outside the airport before reaching the (only operating) counter. You can also smirk as they all hang around a packed departure lounge, fighting for seats and oxygen (BTW, you’ll find the same gits who reserve their sunchairs at the poolside, piling odd bits of carry-on luggage onto available seats: you never know, Helmut might just decide to sit down after a while…).

But then, I suspect it is all a cunning strategy you make you actually enjoy the square meter of space allotted to you during your flight home.

I sure did!