Avoid Ryanair fees!!!

Ryanair has just introduced new safety procedures following a boarding accident on Stansted airport in July 2009. A three-year-old child fell on to the tarmac from the top of a passenger staircase.  Luckily, the girl escaped with only minor injuries after falling through a gap between the extendable handrail and the top of the Boeing 737’s. According to a report issued by Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), the child had climbed the stairs unassisted as her mom, journalist Sasha Slater, was busy carrying her 18-month- old son, Joe. She was also struggling with the hand luggage.

“When the child reached the top of the stairs, she turned towards her mother, leaned backwards and fell through the gap between the extendable handrail and the top of the airstairs on to the hardstanding below,” the report said. The girl, Olga received an initial medical assistance and was flown to hospital. She was released 24 hours late. with only minor injuries.

The AAIB recommended that Ryanair updates its passenger boarding and disembarkation procedures to make sure ” that assistance is made available to passengers accompanied by children and those with special needs”. The AAIB mentioned four previously reported similar incidents involving small children. American aviation authorities issued a special airworthiness information bulletin. Boeing 737 flight attendant manual was also updated and two special safety bulletins released following those accidents.

In response, Ryanair yesterday issued a brief statement saying it had reviewed its procedures as recommended by the AAIB. The airline introduced new safety measures for boarding and disembarking aircraft “to eliminate any recurrence of these extremely rare events”.

Paul Simmons, EasyJet’s UK general manager took a shot at Ryanair, accusing the rival no-frills airline of flying from Edinburgh airport to “dodgy village airports” no one has even heard of. The latest episode of Ryanair vs EasyJet drama comes just a few weeks after Michael O’Leary was forced by court to apoligise to EasyJet’s founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou for calling him a liar in reference to EasyJet’s punctuality report. Shortly after that Ryanair published another ad, claiming that Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is the new EasyJet’s head of punctuality. Apparently, EasyJet’s punctuality record at London Gatwick airport is worst than the one of Air Zimbabwe.

Mr Simmons announced today in Edinburgh that EasyJet will compete with mainstream airlines of Cologne and Paphos routes. He also noted that Ryanair runs “to some fairly dodgy places, like Bratislava, Tampere and Kaunas. They get attractive deals to fly to these villages. But we serve the right routes, which are sustainable in the long term and which people have heard of.”

Mr Simmons also stated that EasyJet, which is the biggest carrier in Edinburgh, carried about 2m of 8.7m annual Edinburgh airport passengers, compared to Ryanair’s 1.7m passengers. Mr Simmons noted that Ryanair has twice as many routes from Edinburgh airport than EasyJet.

Ryanair rebutted immediately saying that EasyJet should look at its own problems. Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said: “Ryanair has become Europe’s largest airline by developing an exciting network of low fare destinations throughout Europe, recognising that passengers don’t want to keep flying to the same old destinations.”

He added: “The focus for EasyJet should not be Ryanair’s successful route network but EasyJet’s abysmal punctuality, high fares, what it will call itself after Stelios takes the ‘Easy’ brand back, and on the fact that EasyJet can’t compete with Ryanair on price or service.”

According to latest statistics, an average EasyJet flight from Edinburgh was delayed by nearly 20 minutes between January and March this year. Mr Simmons pledged passengers would see improvements this summer saying “We have had problems with lack of crew cover, and air traffic control problems in France and Greece. However, we now have a good operation, which is a lot more resilient and will be strong for the rest of the summer”.

Budget airline Ryanair annouced on Wednesday, that it carried 7.61m passengers in July 2010. Is is a significant increase from July 2009, when the airline served 6.73m passengers. That means that despite a credit crunch, rouge Icelandic volcano and a general slowdown in the airline industry, Ryanair managed to increase its traffic by 13%.

In the last 12 rolling months ending on 31 July 2010, Ryanair carried a total of 70.1m passengers. The budget airline experienced a slight drop in load factor, from 89% to 88%. Load factor shows an average number of passenger seats sold as a proportion of the number of seats available for passengers. That means the average Ryanair flight has only 12% vacant seats. Ryanair stock (RYAAY) rose by 1.3% on the news.