Travel (drink) light, pay to pee is back?

“Ryanair is determined to incentivise passengers to travel light this summer by increasing our checked-in baggage fees for the months of July and August only. These baggage fees, which are avoidable by passengers, will apply to bookings made after midnight (24:00hrs) Wednesday for travel in July and August.  From 1^st September the checked-in bag fee will return to its current level of €15. Over 70% of all Ryanair passengers will be unaffected by these changes because they travel with no checked-in bags.” - Ryanair’s Steve McNamara

All well and good, compared to Spirit. But…

In an interview on BBC television this morning, Mr (Michael) O’Leary said that the low-cost airline was looking at the possibility of installing a coin slot on the lavatory door so that “people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny.” - telegraph.co.uk

But, consider the source, says O’Leary’s flack:

Later, Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said: “Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and, while this has been discussed internally, there are no immediate plans to introduce it.

I won’t believe it when I don’t see it. There’s more than one way to skin an airline customer.

Update on April 7, 2010 by Frank@OBOW

O’NO - click pic to ready Daily Mail blog slam

Comments

[Monte]

This may follow the practice found in most European and British public restrooms, Pay to pee. We noticed while travelling on trains in Wurope last year that there was a ruch to use the facilities beginning about ten minutes before arrival. kWe figured out that while the potties on the trains were free those in the stations were not so everyone who needed to emptied their tanks before the trains stopped.

I suppose Ryanair passengers could make "truckers bombs", plastic bottles which are used to pee in and them discarded. In this country you can see them along highways, In Ryanair planes you could see them in seat back pockets. Of course there might be some need for privacy covers, but in Europe the social habits of toileting is vastly different than in the US.

[Alan Birnbaum]

A current article which continues the discussion about the vagaries of airline fees above and beyond the basic ticket; hope the link works!

http://news.travel.aol.com/2010/03/23/airline-fees-on-the-rise/?ncid=AOLCOMMtravdynlprim0875&icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl4|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.travel.aol.com%2F2010%2F03%2F23%2Fairline-fees-on-the-rise%2F%3Fncid%3DAOLCOMMtravdynlprim0875

[Dan]

What if the coin slot on the lavatory door malfunctions?
Maintainence service will not be avalaible during the flight.
Which means no " WE-WE ".LOL.