The relationship between anger or tolerance for poor service and the price paid for such service seems to be directly proportional, or at least that is the case with Ryanair. Would the same thing happen in a supermarket?

I arrived in Madrid after a flight of many hours and, coincidentally, a new flight from Ryanair took me to Valencia just at the time of my arrival at a very cheap price, so ignoring the recommendations of friends and known cases that They had suffered all sorts of strange events (such as not letting a two-year-old girl be boarded for not having a DNI even though legislation indicates that the family book is enough … but the company indicates having its “internal regulations” “That seems to be above the national legislation” set by the Ministry of Public Works that reads as follows: “Children under 14 years of age who fly with their parents, to fly in national territory, are exempt from being accredited through the DNI”) I was foolish and I decided to hire that flight.

The connection was perfect. Landing one flight and connecting with the other with 5 minutes of margin. Get off one plane and get on another. No waiting. Perfect after 8 hours of flight. But that was the theory … When arriving at the terminal, the flight that was supposed to leave at 2:00 pm has an indication on the screen of departure at 8:30 pm. No other information No person in the company. No window. No explanation

By professional deformation, I begin to analyze customer service and consumer behavior. The hours begin to pass and nobody gives an explanation. Those affected by the flight, not knowing which gate is supposed to board, do not meet, so they are scattered around the terminal without being known. (Fortuito that the only flight that does not have the indicated boarding gate of the hundred that is on the monitors is that? I do not think so …)

After three hours, the company has to offer a snack to waiting passengers. When no person ever appears, nobody knows who to turn to. After insisting on the counter of AENA (which imagine the affection that they will have to Ryanair to have to support all the claims of others) they tell me that the company “gives me” with a sandwich for the wait. For this, I have to go to a cafeteria and in secret, by the back of it, “claim” my valuable gift.

The hours continue to pass. The most humorous case occurs with a Ryanair flight to Gerona. Being in the same situation, a boarding gate and the message “embarking” appear on the screen. I’m going to the boarding gate. There is nobody there. Not Ryanair staff, much less the plane.

The time goes by and after 5 hours a boarding gate finally appears, so that the affected passengers can for the first time meet and tell their experiences. One tells that he tried to change the ticket to another flight of the same company at 7.30pm and that he has been told that if he wants to change it he has to pay 50 euros. Another account that has asked one of the young and inexperienced hostesses of the company that was passing by and that has told her to be attentive to the monitor and has left running, literally. Others indicate that the company’s website clearly indicates that the flight has departed on time.

In the end, Ryanair without giving the slightest explanation or of course apologizing, includes us on the trip at 7.30 pm (which curiously was half empty) without having to pay 50 euros, which is clearly a saving to not have to charter a new plane.

During all these long hours, no consumer mounts in anger or processes any claim; Moreover, when they meet, I listen to conversations “assume” that these things happen because the ticket is very cheap and that with other more expensive companies does not happen. We all have in mind the scenes and scandals that appear on television when something similar happens with companies with a higher price, but of course, not with Ryanair. The consumer assumes that for the low price he has paid for the ticket has to support all kinds of disrespect and lack of service without further ado.

The icing comes with the jocular and noisy message when landing by public address “Ryanair: Another flight on time”.

A simile of the situation can be going to buy at a supermarket hard discount and assume that the products they sell us are dated, broken, defective, etc. because they are cheap and buy them with total normality. We would do it?

Recently, the Vocento Group journalist Arturo Checa published in his special “V” an article called “Abuses of low cost” in which he narrated Ryanair’s treatment of the client and how the company ignores the legislation, citing a sentence of Doña Bárbara María Córdoba, commercial judge of Barcelona, ​​in a judgment that describes as “abusive and null” the clause with which the Irish airline charged almost the equivalent of another ticket for the simple fact of printing the boarding pass to the passenger who Do not take it at the moment you start your flight. They do not care. They continue to charge her because “the sentence is not firm”. The article also talks about other abuses.

Too bad to have been abroad and not having read the aforementioned article before. By the way, my admiration for this media that has had the courage to publish this article, because the unfortunate reality is that the media do not publish articles of this type for fear that the company will withdraw their investment in advertising.

In conclusion, from now on I will listen to my grandmother and I will never fly with Ryanair again. “The cheap is expensive.”