This flight review covers a flight that was part of the tail-end of a vacation and a final flight
home, departing Dublin for Vilnius, Lithuania aboard a Ryanair Boeing 737 MAX 8-200. The
prospect of stepping aboard a fairly new aircraft (and something rare like the 737-8-200) should
be quite exciting. However, with Ryanair's rather basic cabin and featureless seating,
there really wasn't too much to be excited about. But then again, there’s a lot that
can be said about Ryanair's service and handling of passengers - as well as the somewhat chaotic
experience at Dublin airport. Let's look at all of these factors in this flight review.
First, we’ll go over some pre-flight information and the airport experience,
If you’re only interested in the flight itself, feel free to skip to this part in the video.
Operating as FR7148, the flight from Dublin to Vilnius is a nearly three-hour service - although
some days the flight duration can be as fast as two-and-a-half hours.
As mentioned in a previous easyJet flight review,
the flight booking process comes with all the standard annoyances of budget airlines:
Repeated warnings and subsequent encouragements to purchase extra baggage.
And page after page of advertisements for food vouchers, car rentals,
hotel stays, and travel insurance.
All-in-all, however, these little annoyances justify the low price tag of the direct flight.
After paying a little extra for a 10kg check-in bag and a second cabin bag for
one passenger (which comes with priority boarding), the final cost for this one-way
service for two passengers was €99.47 - or about ​​​$98US at the time of this video’s production.
The aircraft that would take us to Vilnius would be a Boeing 737-8-200 (or MAX 8-200)
with registration EI-HET. According to Planespotters.net, this aircraft is a
three-year-old airframe. However, the jet was only delivered to Ryanair from Boeing in February 2022.
This tells us that the aircraft was built during the worldwide grounding of the MAX,
but made undeliverable due to the lengthy re-certification process.
Prior to arriving at the airport, our flight reviewers checked themselves in online. However,
with one passenger being a Canadian citizen with a Canadian passport,
a boarding pass was not issued to online. Instead, the PDF file generated directed
this passenger to go to a Ryanair check-in desk at the airport to attain their boarding pass.
After a little bit of research, it appears that the airline does this for ALL non-EU passports
in order to reduce the likelihood of a passenger arriving at their destination without the proper
visa or entry requirements - even if a number of nationalities are part of a visa-free regime.
At the same time, The Points Guy notes that "other European low-cost airlines like EasyJet,
Norwegian and Wizz Air do not have this requirement."
But since any airline would be responsible for flying the offending passenger back to
the origin airport, Ryanair has deemed that this is an unlikely situation it would rather avoid at
all costs - but this is clearly at the expense of passenger (and possibly employee) satisfaction.
Although it was an early-evening flight, our flight reviewers showed up to Dublin
Airport in the early afternoon - a whole four hours prior to the
flight's departure. Not knowing what to expect with the current state of airports
and surging travel demand, they were glad that they showed up as early as they did!
While lines of automated kiosks were available for Ryanair passengers to carry out the bag-drop
process, just two or three desks were available for dozens of Ryanair customers needing to perform
this visa check. The line wound back and forth through a series of stanchions and overflowed
past the last pole. Without any clear signage, numerous travelers tried to find the scarce and
difficult-to-spot airline assistance personnel in order to confirm that they were in the right line.
Tensions flared due to the slow speed of the process. While some passengers had arrived at
the airport two hours prior to their flight, they quickly found themselves running out of time.
One couple saw a quote-unquote "shortcut" that bypassed a
section of the line-up and seized the opportunity.
When called out by a number of other frustrated passengers,
they resisted and insisted that they had a right to jump from
20th position to 2nd-in-line. The Ryanair personnel had nothing to say about this.
A few minutes later a desperate traveler was overheard appealing to a family in front of her,
explaining that her flight was departing soon, asking if she could get ahead of them.
The man she talked to declined politely saying something to the effect of "if I do it for you,
then I have to do it for everyone else in the same situation, sorry."
Eventually this traveler got the attention of a Ryanair employee, who looked at her flight
information, and then directed her to the Ryanair ticket office. While this traveler was perhaps
more unlucky than others, Ryanair employees could also be seen escorting other travelers to
the front of the queue to get them processed quickly so they could catch their flights.
Considering the fact that the airline's competitors don't have this same policy,
it's clear that this is one particularly undesirable aspect of flying with Ryanair
is a major downside. At the same time, if you're holding an EU passport and
flying between EU/EEA countries, you'll get to avoid this mess.
The Points Guy also writes:
"Many airlines will check certain passengers for visas at the gate,
but Ryanair — being an ultra low-cost airline — forces all non-EU/EEA passengers to do
this themselves, even if they don’t need a visa to enter the country."
Flying out on a Thursday afternoon/evening in October,
Dublin Airport was quite busy and there were long and intimidating line-ups for
both scanning boarding passes and for the actual security screening.
Thankfully, it would appear that Dublin Airport had the necessary facilities to
handle this volume of passengers. Stanchions kept travelers in long yet orderly lines,
which flowed continuously despite the incredible volume of passengers.
Once at the front of the first queue, scanning boarding passes prior to security
was quick and easy, with multiple stations available to ensure constant movement.
The next queue would be for security screening. While this is certainly more complex than scanning
a boarding pass, things moved almost as quickly with so many security screening checkpoints open.
Not only were there multiple stations, but each station had quote-unquote "parallel divestment" -
allowing multiple passengers to prepare themselves and their belongings for screening simultaneously.
Collectively, these features did a fantastic job of making sure that the
airport was moving passengers through the process quickly and efficiently,
despite the incredible numbers of people.
More queues would await travelers passing through security. At every restaurant that was passed,
long line-ups for service could be seen. One of our passengers opted to go for
Burger King - which, despite having four automated kiosks for ordering, had its own lengthy queues.
With probably 15 people at a time standing around with their receipts (and order numbers) staring
at a screen waiting for their meal to be served, an Irishman turned to our one flight reviewer and
quipped "this is probably the saddest lottery ever." And, after ingesting two small burgers
and one small order of fries at a cost of €16, we’re inclined to think he was right! But, at
the same time, one can't be too shocked by the price of airport food these days.
After the visit to Burger King our passengers headed towards their assigned gate at 117.
This is at the very, very, very end of a long pier at the airport's Terminal 1.
Thankfully, the series of moving walkways helps to get passengers to this gate area
without too much exhaustion - although a fair bit of walking was still required.
Gates 114 through 119 are at the end of the pier and down at a lower level. In this small,
somewhat isolated section of the airport, seating is scarce,
and certainly insufficient to handle three or four flights departing within the same hour.
This forced many passengers to sit on the floor or stand around.
Despite the long walk and insufficient seating, this gate area offers some great
views of the apron and aircraft arriving getting 'turned around', and pushing back. This kept
some people entertained while everyone waited for their own flights to board.
Boarding commenced soon enough and it seemed like most passengers on this
flight were experienced enough with Ryanair to only enter the queue early if they had
priority boarding. Most others held back and waited for this first phase to finish.
Eventually, all of the passengers had their boarding passes scanned and were
directed to walk out to the waiting aircraft.
However, everyone was left standing outside for an extended period of time due to reasons unknown.
A member of the ground crew walked up and down the air stairs to the cockpit several times so
perhaps there was an issue that needed to be worked out. Standing outside in the blustery
weather may not have been ideal for some, but, given the lack of rain and dramatic clouds,
it certainly made for some nice photos and video - even if a giant rain cloud was fast
approaching! The situation would certainly have been more miserable if it had begun raining!
Passengers eventually boarded - and not a moment too soon,
as rain started to come down moments after most passengers were seated.
As with most low-cost single-type-fleet airlines, the inflight experience with
Ryanair is quite consistent and predictable. The aircraft types are identical (now with two
variants), and seats are quite standard across the fleet with a 3x3 layout.
However, while SeatGuru.com notes that the airline's 737-800s have a pitch of
approximately 30 inches, Aero Lopa lists the MAX 8-200s as having a 28 inch pitch for most seats.
But despite this difference, the seats of the new aircraft are pretty much just as
featureless as the older generation of 737s: They lack inflight entertainment systems,
adjustable headrests, a seatback pocket, or in-seat power for charging devices. As the old
saying goes, "you get what you pay for," and we certainly didn't pay much for this flight!
Legroom seemed sufficient and it's very possible to squeeze a medium-large backpack underneath.
The padding of the new slim seats wasn't great but it was sufficient for a three hour flight.
While many passengers may opt to avoid paying extra for inflight food and beverage,
our travellers decided to give it a try on this flight,
ordering a hot chicken sandwich, a vegan lasagna, and a coffee.
The hot sandwich was surprisingly good while the lasagna was horrid 'mush.'
This is likely the result of the product being gluten-free as well, since the quote-unquote
'noodles' had softened significantly by the time the product was heated and served!
As for the coffee, it was decent and was served with an interesting
oversized lid complete with some sort of 'mesh' top to filter the beverage.
This is how the lid is described by its designers over at Boxclever:
"Filtering real ground coffee through an innovative mesh in the lid and elevating
the humble cup of coffee into a deliciously fragrant hot beverage. A raised lip gives
the feel of a cup; instead of drinking through a small hole,
the coffee filters into a ‘well’ area from where it can be sipped."
Despite the departure being 10 minutes late, the flight managed to arrive at Vilnius a
whopping 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Just like departure, passengers departed
the aircraft via stairs and walked directly into the terminal without the need of shuttle buses.
Reflecting on the inflight service, the flight attendants were fantastic at their jobs, working
diligently and efficiently whilst being courteous, warm, and friendly. The chief flight attendant,
David, did a fantastic job reporting on the status of the flight at various points of the journey
while also popping into the front lavatory several times to give it a quick cleaning.
Ultimately, this direct, one-way flight was offered at a fantastic price,
even with a few add-ons included. Meanwhile, the experience at Dublin
Airport was fairly efficient despite the terminal being quite crowded and busy.
Indeed, everything excellent with the exception of Ryanair's visa check process,
which clearly caused some stress and frustration for many travelers.
All in all, it seems like traveling with Ryanair is either cheap, easy,
and satisfactory - or it is a nightmare experience if something goes wrong along the way.
So what is your experience of Ryanair? Is it better or worse than what was
described for this flight? Let us know by leaving a comment!