The airline so bad there's an entire song about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyl2tOaKxM
Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
131–140 of 207 posts
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, that is described as an 8 year old example. Their current UX is much more clear. Their current pattern is more about playing into the fear of what happens without insurance, without selecting your seat, when you don't pay for early check in and forget to do it online on the day before the flight, or what happens if you show up with more or larger luggage than what you booked. Fears they themselves create…
It's funny, I booked a flight with Ryanair only about an hour ago - out of pure desperation - first time in 15 years. I remember them being crafty, but I have to admit I was surprised by the level of tactics ... that is to say, what they are still allowed to get away with given European / UK consumer law. Not to mention that a 20kg bag and hand luggage cost me significantly more than the fare itself. They even had up…
My story wasn't with Ryanair, but I used to use Skyscanner to find the cheapest ticket, which is usually from a reseller agent instead of the airline (and whatever savings one made was wasted with time reading the 1-star reviews of how shit they are and then convincing oneself "Oh it'll be fine.").
One of these sites offered the ticket for dozens of Euros cheaper, and allowed me to go through the booking process until the end: I entered my CC, hit "Buy", and the next page was "Oops, the flight is no longer available at this price. The price now is: [the same price as booking with the airline]. Would you like to complete the purchase with this new price anyway?".
Fucking hell, it pissed me off so much that I said no and booked it with the airline after all.
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#133About 1/3 of their revenue is ancillary (the dark patterns are there to cause ancillary revenue). I just flew from Bournemouth to Alicante on Ryanair for £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x. The dark patterns took me about 10min to click through. Doing the math, that means my time would have to be worth $1500/hr which is higher than the take-home (not bill…
> £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x. ??? Maybe round-trip at a peak time. But if you're talking about one-way flights, you can fly across the entire country (NYC to SFO) for <$150 without hunting for a deal. DC to Miami is $50 (£37) each way, all of next month.
I just spot checked and you can even find round trip for about that cross country. There was even some delta flights showing up really cheap.
Too bad they’re never cheap when I need to travel…
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a bit of a bonus for the latter airline, you are permitted to yell "Forth Aer Lingus!" as you charge headlong towards your seat. RyanAir is ultra-budget. You need to be ready for the whole thing, but often you can get something much cheaper. As an example, looking for London to Belfast next month, RyanAir is a fifth the price.
Thanks, I hadn't seen a price difference like that. I'm unsure about the following. Do you know if flights between London and Belfast be covered under EU airline rules regarding missed and delayed flights?
The UK copy-pasted EU261 into "UK261", which of course covers intra UK flights. That UK law would apply, not EU261 (London and Belfast are both in the UK)
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#135Using the Ryanair website makes me feel icky. The whole thing feels like you have to be constantly on guard not to get tricked - and I'm relatively wise to these things. I dread to think how much of their revenue is generated from people buying stuff they don't want or need. I will always pay more to not use Ryanair, given the choice. Unfortunately I don't always have a choice.
If its happening often, create some uBO rules to block the worst of it
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#136About ten years ago, Ryanaiar suffered a booking system malfunction. My ticket was wrongly booked to "John Smith" and apparently sent to an email address "joxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx" due to a flaw in their booking system. I noticed when trying to check in online far in advance.
After many hours spent fruitlessly fighting the Ryanair customer disservice desk, I decided to enlist the help of my local ECC [0]. I paid Ryanair a 120€ name change fee and had the ECC claim it back for me.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Consumer_Centres_Netw...
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#137If you book Ryanair, and your concentration slips up for a second, you WILL make a mistake and it WILL cost you money and/or inconvenience you. Then you might complain about that, and be met with smarmy, smug, smarter-than-you people who insist that they fly with Ryanair all the time and never pay too much, people who can't read shouldn't be allowed to book flights, etc. etc.
It's worth avoiding Ryanair just to avoid that scenario.
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#138I understand the frustrations, but...we're all grown adults here right? Who DOESN'T pay for seat selection if you want or need a good one? The insurance item is ridiculous, but...again, for grown adults with families/kids, do you really fly Ryanair?
> but...again, for grown adults with families/kids, do you really fly Ryanair?
Every time I'm on a Ryanair flight to Spain, it's very family-heavy. Like, why wouldn't families go on Ryanair? If nothing else, they have a near-monopoly on certain routes.
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#139The ryanair experience is so abysmal, so revolting, that I gladly pay 2x-3x the price with regular state backed carriers, just to avoid ryanair.
I feel sad when I think about people who can not afford to do that, and must tolerate being pissed in the face, repeatedly, every time they travel with ryanair.
I do hope they disappear from the planet. The planet and the human race would be better off.
Re: Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher
#140> Don’t rent a car, don’t buy parking, don’t buy a train(?) In Europe, it is pretty common to continue onwards to your actual destination by train!
They will, entertainingly, try to sell you train tickets even if the airport doesn't have a train station.
They also send _constant_ emails about car rental (I assume it must be a profit centre for them). Yes, Ryanair, I will definitely want to rent a car for my weekend trip to notoriously-car-friendly _London_.