There’s always some source of frustration when flying with Ryanair, and returning from Stockholm to Luton Airport yesterday evening was no exception. The flight was fine and even the luggage arrived fast. The problem is with the Green Line coach to and from Luton Airport. I can’t work out why what they do riles me so much…
The deal works like this: you get on the bus, the driver asks you which airline you flew with, and the passenger is then told a price. If you answer Easyjet you get a cheap ticket, and if you answer anything else you get to pay the full price. The official prices for the route are here. Tickets are £15 return and £10.50 single, or £11.50 return and £10 single for Easyjet customers. There is also the option to book an eTicket using the online Easyjet offer – £11 return (details here) – interesting to see there’s no proof of purchase of a flight with Easyjet listed in the terms on the website.
So why is this deeply annoying? I know I am not the only one frustrated – I heard the remarks in German of some fellow passengers sat close to me. We are used to all kinds of sales offers and tricks, but we tend to be safe in our lack of knowledge – we don’t know what that voucher was that the person in front of us in the queue in Sainsbury’s used. Second, we are used to one price when you turn up and pay on public transport and are used to reductions for those booking in advance. Or perhaps it’s simply due to all those people sat listening to the conversations with the driver thinking damn, we’ve been ripped off.
I don’t think there is anything that could be done legally about this. All I can say is that the proof that tends to be required by the bus driver is an Easyjet flight booking reference, and these all start with E as far as I can tell. You might also remember that the timetables for Easyjet flights are available here, and that of course it is a ticketless airline and you might just have binned your boarding pass stub on the way out of the airport.
