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Ryanair’s 86 million customers now have the option to book and pay for Ryanair flights using their PayPal account, ensuring faster bookings on the ryanair.com website.

The faster booking and payment facilityis the latest in a series of customer service improvements under the ‘Always Getting Better’ programme introduced by Ryanair last year. The improvements include allocated seating, a second free cabin bag, reduced fees, a new website and app, mobile boarding passes and the Ryanair Family Extra service – a dedicated family service.

The budget airline has launched an app that will allow passengers to store their boarding pass on their phone and avoid having to print it out at all.The boarding passes will be available offline and more than one can be carried on a single phone.

It also allows passengers to view live flight information, make flight bookings, choose their seats, and add baggage to their booking.

The app is currently being offered in English, Italian and Spanish and the company said further language versions would follow.

Ryanair has announced plans to offer flights to the US for less than £10, but admitted passengers will have to pay some additional charges.

The flights would leave from up to 14 major European cities to 12-14 destinations in the United States.

Mr O’Leary added that “N’ot every seat will be €10 of course, there will also need to be a very high number of business or premium seats.’”

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A Spanish judge ruled that the calendar, released each year by the low-cost airline in support of charitable causes, was sexist. Ryanair said it would appeal the decision.

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The carrier published the advertisements late last year for its 2013 calendar, which featured more than a dozen scantily-clad female cabin crew. It said sales of the calendar had raised €100,000 (£84,000) for charity.

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Ryanair has announced a plan to move to fully allocated seating on all of its flights.

The budget carrier said the new system will be in force from February 1.

The move comes after numerous customer complaints about the frenzied rush by passengers to secure the best seats.

Ryanair has sought to explain its controversial one carry-on bag rule, insisting it is necessary for safety reasons.

The move was prompted “‘false claims’” made by a number of “‘poorly briefed’” members in the European Parliament, Ryanair said.

Ryanair argues because it operates with very high load factors and because it encourages its passengers to travel with free of charge carry-on bags in order to avoid checked in bag fees, most passengers carry ten kilograms of luggage onto the plane.

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Ryanair has increased the number of seats passengers can reserve on its flights, in a further example of low-cost carriers adding premium services for customers willing to pay extra.

Ryanair’s move follows the decision by rival easyJet to roll out cabin-wide allocated seating across all flights – a change that has cost the company about £10m on IT systems but could significantly boost revenues.

Ryanair customers who went to the trouble of using the airline’s own credit card to avoid paying a £6 admin fee will no longer have that benefit after the firm announced that all passengers will have to pay the charge. Anyone taking a Ryanair flight after 1 December will be required to pay the £6 a person fee for each single journey as part of the headline ticket price, irrespective of how they pay.

Until now, customers who took out a Ryanair Cash Passport Mastercard could avoid the credit card fee, which adds £48 to the cost of booking a return journey for a family of four.

No-frills airline Ryanair raised its guidance for the year as profit rose 10 per cent in the first half of its financial year and traffic increased.

The airline said it would raise its profit guidance for the year from between €400 million and €440 million to between €590 million and €520 million after a strong performance in the six months to September.

Revenues were 15 per cent higher for the six-month period at €3.11 billion, with profit after tax rising to €596 million compared with €544 million in the six months to September 2011.

Ryanair has announced that passengers who experience Ryanair flight delays of over 90 minutes will now receive free text message updates to advise them of the likely duration of the delay and their new departure time.

The service is a new addition to Ryanair’s existing email/text and website passenger communications. The company says it will be particularly useful during periods of severe disruption such as bad weather, strikes or widespread airspace closures (eg volcanic ash).

source: www.businessandleadership.com