Seatbelts on planes...?

[Tooki]

Oh...phew, I was getting worried there for a second. Not like I would be using his airlines anyway...I'll take my commercial airlines, thank you very much.

Well by short-haul, I mean flights within Europe . There are 3+ hour flights though.

Yep and that's my problem with charging toilets on planes. I make a purchase. I buy a plane ticket so I should have the right to use the toilet free of charge. Nobody would ever think of charging the bathroom at a restaurant where you make a purchase. Why on planes?

Bingo. And with Ryanair, you pay 12 pounds one way for 'admin fees' anyway...

And this is quite off-topic and throwing wood into the fire, but raise your bloody taxes if you need money. I can definitely say that higher taxes saved Australia in part during the GFC.

[Dziubka]

This thread is hilarious

[Sora1101]

The way I see it is if you pay for the plane ticket you're paying for all the amenities on said plane, (which is why I love flying Delta they give you free snacks drinks and at night time a free blanket to use ) it would be like if you rented a hotel room and they charged you for using the bathroom! I also think that if any place provides you with beverages then using the bathroom should be free, I mean cmon they're filling you with fluid where else are we supposed to put it all.

[Tooki]

The way I see it is if you pay for the plane ticket you're paying for all the amenities on said plane, (which is why I love flying Delta they give you free snacks drinks and at night time a free blanket to use ) it would be like if you rented a hotel room and they charged you for using the bathroom! I also think that if any place provides you with beverages then using the bathroom should be free, I mean cmon they're filling you with fluid where else are we supposed to put it all.

I understand budget airlines not giving you free food (I'm fine with paying more that, it's not like the food is any good ) but charging for a toilet? Geeez, do I need to pay a 15 euro fee for the seat?

[11MikesGirl21]

I fly a lot, close to 20 times a year just on trips between home and school. My least favorite part is landing. I'm always jolted forward, I would be off my seat if I wasn't strapped in. I wouldn't go for it if standing room ever came to the US. It just doesn't make me feel safe.

[LittleVari]

If a plane is going to crash, chances are most of the people on it are going to die anyways regardless of a seat belt so I mean why not.

Not true at all. The survival rate for passengers in a commercial airline crash is over 95%. Planes rarely crash, and the big crashes with 100% fatalities are even more rare. But turbulence, rough take-offs, and bad landings can happen on any flight, and these events happen daily. People have been killed after being bounced around a cabin in severe turbulence. And in the event of a crash landing, all those passengers in SRO will suddenly become missiles flying around the cabin. You'd be looking at fatalities from incidents that would have been entirely survivable for all passengers. And as someone who would never buy a SRO ticket, I'd be pretty pissed if some cheapskate lost his grip on the strap and killed me, especially since I paid more to have my ass safely belted to the seat. XD

As far as seatbelts and standing on ground transport, it really is a different animal. When a plane takes off and lands, there is far more speed and g-force than you'd ever experience in the normal operation of a bus or train. And crashes are at lower speeds, thus someone standing and holding onto a strap is far more likely to be able to stay upright over someone standing and holding onto a strap in a plane crash. And I don't know about the designs of city buses or trains, but it has been proven in the event of a crash, passengers in school buses are safer without seatbelts. The high padded seats work very well in protecting passengers in a crash.

Mostly I think Michael O'Leary is full of it with this. Ryanair has a reputation for being cheap and seedy and O'Leary has a reputation for being a money grubbing attention seeker. He plays into exceptions, and enjoys creating negative publicity because it goes right along with what people expect from Ryanair. It underlines that he'll do anything to keep things cheap, which is why Ryanair appeals to so many people in the first place. All Ryanair has going for it are cheap tickets and a rep for being the worst, and whenever their CEO talks about his crazy new strategy, it gets press. Rather brilliant marketing to my eyes.