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Belgian Students Mutiny On Ryanair Flight
A set of rowdy students get kicked off a plane for being disobedient: Not surprising. They’re Belgian: Surprising. But in early Febuary, Ryanair ejected 104 Belgian University students from a flight, claiming that their actions amounted to ‘Mutiny’.
The students were returning home from the Tropical Sky (Weddings Abroad are popular) of Lanzarote to Brussels, capital of Europe’s ever passive battleground. At the centre of the row was the budget Irish carrier’s outsized baggage fees. Ryanair is renowned for its very restrictive weigh and size baggage policies, and the fee incurred is usually about 35 Euro. They have another twenty fees for everything from ‘Infant Equipment’ to ‘Priority Boarding’ to a 100 Euro ‘name change’ fee (In the majority of cases, it would be cheaper to rebook the flight).
Proving that size has little bearing on popularity, Ryanair are the second largest airline in Europe. You’re hardly going to take Holidays to Barbados with them. Considering that legroom is a luxury you cannot buy on a Ryanair flight, you’d have to be reasonably crazy to attempt such a flight. The fees are a way of offsetting rising aviation fuel prices, but outright protest against them is usually frowned upon. You usually know what you’re getting in for before you get on the plane after all.
In this case then, Ryanair are justified in being put out by the actions of some rowdy Belgians (even though this is still completely out of character). The Lanzarotte police subsequently requested the removal of all University of Brussels students from the plane, whether they’d objected to the fees or not. Ryanair has made a clear error in doing so: it is incredibly dangerous for them to tar all students with the same brush. By no stretch of the imagination is it possible to claim that all 104 students were likely to have cared much about a few idiots in their midst. Most probably wanted to get home. European students aren’t poor, but they’re not millionaires who can afford to go on Dubai Holidays, and they are therefore a key demographic for low cost air-travel. There is next to no brand loyalty in the budget airline space. Who among the generation of Belgian students insulted by Ryanair’s actions here, would be stupid enough to use them again?
F1 2011 Belgian GP circuit preview by McLaren