With the recent fiasco at Ryanair concerning the pilot holidays and the scathing stories coming out in the media I thought what better to talk about today than the perception your comapny has.
Ryanair already have a poor customer perception due to their notorious added fees, their make do attitude and the way they treat their staff. Ryanair are there for one thing, cheapness. You don't fly with Ryanair because you want to expirience the last word in luxary and fine dining, you use them because they're going to where you're going and it's probably for the lowest cost.
Cheap is great, everyone likes cheap. However it still comes with an air of rubbishness. Most people still believe that you get what you pay for, especially with airlines. So what can Ryanair do to adjust their public image without changing their business model?
They could make sure that their staff are happy. In an article produced by the BBC, the term "leaving in droves" was used when talking about their pilots leaving for other companies. This says that Ryaniar is a poor company to work for. They also mentioned that you are only allowed 4 sick days a year as a pilot. That dosen't seem fair to me. If a company treats its employees as it should, you should never hear anything about them because you expect everyone to be treated in the right way.
They charge a lot of extra money for pretty much everything, this is probably where they make a lot of their money but nevertheless, it makes them seem like they're ripping you off. For example, luggage. All airlines charge for extra baggage but Ryanair's allowence is the lowest in europe at a measly 15kg. If you go over that limit then you will be charged €20 per kilo. So for the 20kg that you can check in with Jet2 it would cost you €100 with Ryanair.
Brand image is everything, especially when you're dealing with a large quanitity of customers. Even more especially when the company is just starting out. Make sure you treat every customer with the greatest of respect. If you think about it, you only really tell their friends when you've had a bad experience with a company.
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