Please do not sit here - a cultural study of Ryanair

April. I am going to be working abroad for a couple of months. My client is a manufacturing company with a loss-making plant located half way across Europe. There are two options for getting there: the Jet2 flight from Leeds or the Ryanair flight from Manchester. I chose the latter because it departs earlier on Monday morning and tell myself that the horror-stories are exaggerated. In truth, I actually admire the CEO for daring to be different. He managed to turn a profit in a highly geared industry throughout the global recession. Though one might question his public persona, he could never be described as duplicitous.

I get up at three in the morning, drive to Manchester, park in the multi-storey, and then weave past the stuttering queue of passengers pushing hold baggage to the check in desk. I have squeezed my laptop, diary, notebook and five day’s clothing into a small case that fits within two of the three dimensions Ryanair imposes. Over the weekend I was sent an automated email yelling at me to ensure I comply with the restrictions, but due to the wheels and the documents I have crammed into the front pocket, the depth of the bag is about five centimetres too large. I stride across the concourse thinking up things to say to anyone who challenges me: my bag is perfectly acceptable on any other airline; I used this very bag on a flight to Dublin last year and you didn’t challenge me then; it fits perfectly into the overhead locker – why does it need to be any smaller?

The worry makes me hot and sticky, something I want to avoid as I am in these clothes for the next eighteen hours. I tell myself to be calm. If I am challenged I will just have to accept what happens.

I snatch a Massimo Breakfast at the Italian trattoria, then dash for the boarding queue which is already clogging the corridor. The occupants avoid each other’s eyes. I take my place at the back and check my pockets: phone, passport, boarding pass, glasses.

Down at the gate, a woman in the lurid Ryanair uniform has started checking the dimensions of all cabin baggage. This must be the famous baggage inspector, something I have heard about but never believed to be real. She carries a cardboard box that slips over passengers’ bags. Having approved the tidily professional business travellers at the front of the queue she sets about the gaggle of middle aged tourists behind them. She tells a beige-clad lady to place her handbag inside her cabin bag. The woman colours, then clumbers down nervously onto one knee. Her actions are rushed. The zip sticks. She forces it and then places her handbag as flat as she can across her underwear before pleading with the zip to close. The lid bulges. It doesn’t look like it will shut but then it does. The woman stands up, relieved, pressing up on one knee. She lifts the bag upright onto its end. The baggage inspector tilts her head like a sparrow, then primly moves on to the next person in the line. She looks like she is revelling in the discomfort she is causing. I exchange glances with my neighbour. His lips are tight. It has taken nearly five minutes for this public repacking to take place. My bag is not the largest of those around me but it’s not the smallest either. My neighbour’s is a nylon black rucksack that bulges out in all directions. I remove a novel and a newspaper from the front pocket of my bag and squeeze the sides together as best I can. Then I realise I have booked a seat. This enables me to nip forward into the priority boarding queue, which has already been through the baggage screening process. Walking down the line past the inspector I feel that I am dishonouring the sanctity of the queue and somehow evading a just punishment that we all should endure. I tell myself not to worry. In a second my boarding pass is torn apart and I am skipping through the gate and down the steps. I have survived the cull.

May. I am impressed with the workload of the staff on the flight but cannot help wondering if they make life hard for themselves. As soon as I have taken my allocated seat they chivvy others to sit in any free position, separating families and partners. The crew leader mumbles something about needing to pushback within the next five minutes and this creates a mild panic as passengers ram their bags into the nearest overhead locker then dive for a seat. Throughout the flight the staff patrol the plane no fewer than twelve times: to check seatbelts, to sell drinks, to take food orders, to serve the food, to peddle scratch cards, bus tickets, electronic cigarettes, more drinks, more food, landing cards, charity raffle cards and then to remove litter before making the final safety check prior to landing. The near constant blizzard of inaudible announcements followed by the staff hawking down the aisle has started to annoy me. I don’t make eye contact and sit in sullen isolation, pretending to read.

This time I am in row 2DEF, behind the bulkhead. I like this position: it has dedicated overhead lockers and more leg room than on the other side. In front of me is a custard-yellow wall with the airline’s harp logo emblazoned across it. I am struck by the androgynous nature of the harp’s figurine. It leaps engagingly into space, the legs and wings gracefully poised. The body is athletic, pert, and powerful. The outline of the breast is tight and round. But then I notice the head; how square it is, how certain and proud is the lift of the chin. It looks, to me, like the head of an eager young man on the body of a woman.

The staff have been changed from the ones I was starting to recognise. The crew leader is Irish but the remainder of the crew are Eastern European. They take it in turns to announce what will be sold next, each as inaudible and inarticulate as the last. I don’t hold it against them but I don’t buy anything either. The constant hard sell has become wearing. I try to sleep, anticipating the three-hour drive I have when we land.

We touch down. The plane taxis off the runway to a trumpeting broadcast over the tannoy: “Welcome to another on time flight from Ryanair… Ryanair, for the best on time record and the lowest prices.” Someone unclicks their seatbelt and the crew leader has to hiss at everyone to sit back down until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and the captain has switched off the seatbelt sign. I look at my watch. We are landing fifteen minutes later than last week and yet we are still on time. How did we manage that, I wonder?

June. I am certain of it now. It happens every journey, even if there is no turbulence. The crew leader unhooks the telephone handset from above his seat, turns away from me, then mutters to someone in the cockpit. He laughs then places the handset back in its cradle. There is a resonant bong as the seat belt sign comes on. He lifts the handset again to announce to us all that the captain has switched on the seatbelt sign and would everyone please return to their seats. The aisle is to be cleared of hand baggage and the toilets are not to be used at this time. He then locks the toilet door (there’s a bolt under the toilet sign) and the staff congregate by the food trolleys, unfazed by having to work though the impending turbulence.

But there is no turbulence. The flight is so stable that the wings don’t even flex. I realise we are being pinned down in our chairs for the trolley to move freely. I am angered by this, astounded at the cheek of it. Is it legal? Thankfully, I don’t need the toilet while the trolley is going down the plane, but others do. Ignoring the seatbelt sign, a mother and child fumble their way forward. The child is red faced and unhappy. With one hand he grasps the groin of his trousers. His mother holds his other wrist and tries to open the toilet door, but it is locked. The child hops from one foot to the other. The crew leader tells the pair to sit back down as the seatbelt sign is still illuminated. The mother argues but the crew leader has no option but to enforce the law. The boy wails pitifully. His mother urges him to hold it in a little while longer then drags him back to their seats. The crew leader turns away from me, picks up the handset and speaks in hushed tones. Miraculously the seatbelt sign goes off almost immediately. The toilet is then unlocked and the mother barges forward: “Excuse me please, coming through…” The crew leader smiles at her. The mother is wonderfully expressive in her gratitude to the crew leader but I am filled with uncontrollable rage at what I think I have just seen. It strikes me that having the authority to say when you can and when you can’t pass water is one of the most awesome powers available to man. It enfeebles. It reduces all of us to the role of incontinent child.

July. I am told that my contract has extended and therefore I can book flights for the next few weeks. This is good: if I book early the flights are cheaper and there is one more thing crossed off my ‘to do’ list. But I still keep the job till last, dreading the moment when I have to battle through Ryanair’s website. Every text field has to be entered from scratch. There are pages and pages of offers one has to positively decline rather than voluntarily accept. No, I don’t want Ryanair Talk. Or parking in Manchester. Or a city tour. Or a bus ticket. Or car hire. And no I don’t need insurance, I’ve already told you that. And if I did want a cabin bag that fits your demands, how do I know you won’t change them in the future? How would you get it to me?

It takes half an hour to book three flights. The overall cost is about the same as if I had got two flights from Jet2, so I am confident I can prove that I am doing everything possible to keep overheads down. But why don’t they just have a loyalty scheme that remembers my passport numbers and expiry date?

Then I get an email from a market research company asking for my impressions of a recent flight. Would I fill in the survey? You bet I would.

To be fair, I am usually impressed with the staff. I’ve seen them maintaining discipline when the entire aircraft was laden with stag and hen parties. I’ve watched a crew leader gently calm a party down who, having started on the gin at six in the morning, were cackling raucously by ten. Once, when I had paid for a seat on the fifth row, a crew member saw how cramped I was and suggested I move to the empty front row so that I could stretch my legs. My gratitude was unbounded: at over six foot I dread the cramping, dehydrating effects of air travel; how it plays havoc with my digestion, disrupts my sleep patterns, and leaves me stiff and headachy for days. On another occasion I watched a bubbly scouse crew leader trying to explain the word ‘tara’ to one of her Eastern European colleagues. The comedy of this discussion was hugely enjoyable for everyone in earshot. On the feedback survey I complain about the use of the seatbelt light as an instrument of enabling sales. I complain about the baggage inspector. But I forget to ask why they don’t ever pay for an airbridge and make us walk down the steps, across the tarmac and up the stairs. Or why they leave us standing forlornly to board the plane. Or why I was refused tap water and forced to pay exorbitantly for a miniscule bottle. Or why the cramped seating cannot be alleviated by employing the always vacant rows 3 and 4. The nub of the issue is, I insist, about their attitude to their customers. On my most recent flight the reserved seats were adorned with a poorly photocopied A4 sheet on which was written ‘please don’t sit here' above a logo indicating a crossed-out seated man.

August. The survey must have been read by someone. For two weeks I notice that the crew don’t ask the cockpit to put on the seatbelt sign before they have to wheel the trolley down the aisle. I am pleased with myself, but the practice resumes when the next crew take over the route.

I am once again in row 2DEF, sat in the middle. The man next to me is as tall as I am. He’s asleep, his novel about to fall from his lap onto the floor. His legs are crossed and due to their length, one foot extends out beyond the bulwark into the aisle. The trolley comes up from behind us. The woman is struggling with the weight of it. She rams it forward to get the wheels over the plastic strip that joins the carpet to the rubber matting in front of Row 1 and in the process traps my neighbour’s foot between the corner of the trolley and the bulwark. He wakes with a sharp yell. “Excuse me, could I get through please,” the crew member snaps as she continues past. My neighbour curses to himself, rubbing his ankle. The crew member neither apologises nor acknowledges him. He looks for a brief moment like he is going to remonstrate with her but then changes his mind. I imagine him being afraid of further humiliation in front of the cold and distant travellers just waiting for this all to be over.

September. There is a documentary on television that describes Ryanair as taking shortcuts. Almost immediately I see that the airline is planning to take the programme makers to court. I then read in the paper that they have had to issue a profit warning. The article gloats about the shouting that would, no doubt, have issued from the Ryanair boardroom. Standing on the stairs before getting on the plane the following Monday morning, the man next to me says that he heard the boss of the company was recorded as saying, “Well, we’d better start being nice to people.” I snort, doubtful that a culture so institutionally dismissive could ever change. If there was an alternative I would take it, I say. People around me turn and nod in silent agreement.

But the truth is we want Ryanair to survive. We need its cheap flights and efficient service. We just want to be treated better. The stories I mention are all true and I have mapped them against Johnson and Schole’s cultural web model to describe the company’s behavioural norms: the routines we have to endure; the symbols we are blasted with; the cold control mechanisms; the utter domination of even out most basic human needs. Does the profit warning mean the power structure will change? We will have to see. I hear they are planning to allocate seats, change the website, and implement other initiatives that will ‘improve the customer experience’. On my last flight I got offered the chance to buy a calendar showing Ryanair hostesses posing in bikinis, almost provocatively, on a beach. I am told that there were several applicants for every place on the photoshoot. I shake my head. The cultural web model looks like a flower, the petals representing the constituent parts of an organisation’s culture. They are organised around a central element, the paradigm, which captures the essence of the whole and forms the lens through which the petals should be viewed. I try to imagine how I would describe the paradigm of Ryanair: something gaudy and androgynous; something surprisingly uncertain about its identity; something that responds to our basic cravings but that can also be cruel, transactional, and mercenary.

Now what does that remind me of?

Notes: Johnson, G. and Scholes, K. Exploring Corporate Strategy: Text and Cases 3rd Edition, Prentice Hall, 1993.