Ryanland

I have found another travel book whose author has flown all around Europe mainly with and tells it all.

NOLAN, Philip : Ryanland, a no-frills odyssey across the new Europe - Hodder Headline Ireland - Dublin, 2007 - 258 pages.

"On an early summer's day in 2006, I (...) set out to take a snapshot of eight months in the life of a continent" : 61 Ryanair flights for just 2064,29 euros, an average of 33,84 euros per sector. (pp xvi - xvii)

The "Introduction - Welcome to Ryanland" is a good summing up of the whole Ryanair affair, written with fairness and without prejudice or acrimony - which is unusual enough to be pointed out.

A few excerpts :

Ryanair arrived at a time when air travel was very much the preserve of the wealthy. Flag-carrier airlines like Aer Lingus and British Airways used to charge 209 irish pounds return from Dublin to London - that's 265 euros converted, but well over 500 euros adjusted for inflation. (page xi)

No other business that does things so well gets quite such a bad press;
After all, check-in is usually brisk and efficient.
Because of its tight schedule, the airline is almost always the most punctual on every route it flies.
It loses fewer bags than any other carrier (...).
It never bumps anyone from a flight because, unlike other airlines, it does not routinely overbook them (...).
It never charges fuel supplements (...)
So, what's the problem ? Well, the issue seems to be the perception that Ryanir is a fair-weather friend.(...) when something goes wrong, passengers are left to fend for themselves.

Many people love Michaël O'Leary, and believe him to be an iconoclast who took out a protectionist cartel, sat it on a mound of Scemtex and stood well back.
Others detest him for turning flying, once the most civilised form of travel, into something nasty and dispiriting.(page xiv)

All of this is changing for ever the way we fly.

When it comes to Ryanair, all of Europe suffers from the emotional dependance on a captor known as Stockholm syndrome - though given the airline's fondness for playing fast and loose with geography, Skavsta syndrome might be more apposite... (page 97)

That book makes for a very pleasant reading, and gives quite a few ideas for future trips with !

thanks for the review and yes i read this book too and it is a good guide to many places in europe but there is very little about MO'L or Ruinair in the book - hence the title I think. I was on the same first ever flight from DUB to Malta last February with the author but i did not know it at the time. My favourite bit is where the author complains in Dublin that Ruinair did not use the priority boarding system and the Ruinair staff member says to him "Listen Bud ....." which in Ireland means you play by our rules or you dont travel on the flight Bud.' Also have you read the MO'L bio called A Life in Full Flight? cheers from Dublin, the home of low fares in Europe!

Yes, I have read "A life in full flight", by Alan Ruddock - interesting, but more a history of Ryanair than a biography of Michaël O'Leary, I think.
Most of the books on Ryanair (and perhaps all of them, as far as I know) have been published in Dublin. Ireland is really proud of her son !

yes we all love Ruinair - would you allow me to fly over to CRL from DUB and interview you on a no-names basis for my next book Ruinairski? it would be v good publicity for this web site - I will add the link in the book? hope so because as MOL says 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' ...! Am i correct in assuming that you have founded this web site. I really hope to meet the founder of the web site ... thanks

The founders of http://www.ryanairfanclub.com and it's forum https://ryanair.forumotion.com are:
Ryanairgrad and Me, the admin.

Do you mean you want to meet us? Or did you want to see atoutprix, one of our biggest Ryanair lovers?

I am not the founder of this site; I am just an ordinary member, writing perhaps more often as I am retired and have more time than most of the other - younger - members.
I do it just for the pleasure of telling and passing my experience to others, and getting informations from fellow members; I, for one, don't want to get involved deeper than that.