Ryanair - Connecting Flights

In the past if you wanted to connect between two Ryanair flights - you had to make two separate bookings and hope your first flight wasn't delayed.  But sometimes it was the best option, and as long as you left enough time between flights, you could be reasonably sure of making your second flight!

Back in October 2010, I flew on Ryanair's first flight from Nador to Beauvais - and whilst I travelled on to London by Eurostar, my sister flew on to Dublin with Ryanair a few hours later.

Then in April 2017, Ryanair announced that they would start offering a limited number of connecting flights - but I'm not sure if it actually happened at the time.

Now though you definitely can book some through tickets on Ryanair - where the risk of missing the connection passes to the airline - with some big caveats.

Ryanair will only sell you connecting flights if the transfer time is between 2.5 hours and 6 hours, and only at certain airports.  They will only transfer your hold luggage for you at Rome Fiumicino, otherwise you need to collect it and check it back in again (or possibly Bergamo and Oporto as well - depending on which Ryanair webpage you read).  Although if you're waiting around for hours at the airport, you may be happy for something to do!

What we don't know is what will happen when things (inevitably) go wrong for a small number of passengers whose first flight is delayed.  Will Ryanair put you up in a hotel if you need to wait 24 hours (or more) for the next flight to your final destination?  Will Ryanair put you on a different airline's flight if the next Ryanair flight is more than 24 hours away?  There aren't many examples in the chatrooms yet about how Ryanair performs when it comes to irregular operations for connecting passengers.

The restriction is not just on the connecting airport, it's also on the departing airport.  Ryanair doesn't currently offer any connecting flights from any London airport (presumably because of concerns about delays arriving into any connecting airport).  From the UK, only departing passengers from Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh are offered connecting flights.

Many of the destinations that Ryanair offer as connecting flights are in Italy, with the second sector being a domestic flight from Bergamo or Fiumicino airport - and yes, I know that Athens isn't in Italy!

If you are offered a connecting flight, it's made quite clear on the booking screen

And once you click on 1 Stop you see the details of the two flights, including how long you will be sitting around the airport

So whilst the connecting options that Ryanair offer are extremely limited, and I wouldn't be totally sure about how they will treat passengers if things go wrong, with the limited number of flights currently available this may be an attractive option for some passengers.

Ryanair Boeing 737 Max 8200 - first revenue flight

Over two years ago I wrote about seating on Ryanair's Boeing 737 Max, as it was due to operate various routes later that Summer

After the tragic accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia, the first Ryanair plane finally arrived last month - seen here poking out of a hangar at Dublin Airport

Today the second aircraft operates its first revenue flights - a round trip from London Stansted to Dublin

Surprisingly the plane isn't showing as operating the same flights in the coming week - so Ryanair may just substitute it in at the last moment.  With the Max having an extra 8 seats over the standard Ryanair Boeing 737-800 it should be easy enough to swap it in with minimal passenger seating changes.

Whilst Ryanair's boss Michael O'Leary said recently that passengers can avoid the Max and take the next flight (at least for the first 4 to 6 months of operation), that promise isn't the same as before the pandemic.  If you turned up at Stansted for this morning's 6.30am flight and decided not to fly on the Max, you will be waiting until 10.15pm this evening for the airline's next flight to Dublin.

If you do find yourself on a Ryanair Max aeroplane, it's worth looking at my full post on the seat plan, as you could get yourself a (slightly) better seat for the same price as a standard seat.