Book by Monday, May 21: Ryanair has launched what it says is the world’s first-ever free seat sale, with a million seats on routes across Europe being given away completely free of charge.
Promotions from low-cost airlines sometimes include “free” seats, but these inevitably involve the passenger having to pay taxes and extra charges. This is not the case in the current sale: passengers have to pay “zilch, nada, zip”, Ryanair says.
For bookings made before Monday, a million free seats are up for grabs, with 150,000 available on Irish routes, and 40,000 available from Glasgow Prestwick.
Other airports included in the giveaway are Stansted, Liverpool, Luton, Bournemouth, Derry, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester, Doncaster, East Midlands, Cork, Knock, Kerry and Shannon.
Ryanair launched the sale yesterday (May 16) and the company’s website, www.ryanair.com, promptly enjoyed its busiest ever day of trading.
It received more than four million hits within five hours, and the rush of passengers caused technical difficulties on the site for a while.
“This unprecedented level of demand from our customers across Europe led to slight technical difficulties which we are happy to report are now resolved,” a spokesman for the airline said.
“As there is such huge interest in this offer there may be unavoidable short delays in accessing the Ryanair website.”
There is also a table on the site showing the availability of the free tickets from the various airports.
Commentators expect the offer to cost Ryanair millions of pounds as it takes on the cost of taxes and extra fees itself.
