My first experience with Ryanair was so discouraging that I've vowed never to travel with them again. We flew from Vienna to Barcelona in early July, having paid for the transportation of three pieces of luggage. Upon arrival in Barcelona, only one of our bags made it. We immediately reported the issue to a Ryanair representative at the airport and filled out a form.
Although we were initially told our bags would likely arrive on the next flight and be sent to our hotel, they never showed up.
We decided to wait a day or two. I was lucky to have some of my clothes in my hand luggage. Unfortunately, my girlfriend had everything in her luggage, which was lost. In addition, there were also cosmetics for more sensitive skin, and my cream for skin problems on the scalp, which was prepared for me at a pharmacy, based on a prescription. So I had to stop the treatment because of that.
The next day in the evening, I called the airport to ask if our luggage arrived or not - They told us that nothing had arrived yet and that they had not received any response from Vienna, so they have no idea what happened to the luggage.
So we waited two more days - without a result. We had to buy things and clothes that we were missing.
We kept hoping that the luggage would eventually show up at our hotel. Nothing arrived.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that my girlfriend was flying to Argentina, not back to Vienna with me. And in one of the lost luggage, she had most of the clothes that she had taken with her to Europe and that she would also like to use again at home. Plus souvenirs from her travels in Europe, gifts for her family, and gifts she received during her visit. When I mentioned to a person from the airport during one phone call that I would eventually like to send one of the luggage to a city located approximately 500 kilometers from the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, it seemed that they are not happy.
On the last day of our stay in Barcelona, we bought one piece of luggage to accommodate the items we needed and had to buy and a few things from Barcelona. My girlfriend took this luggage with her to Argentina, returning home with only a portion of her belongings, and it was still a mystery to us what happened to our luggage during our farewell.
Upon my return to Vienna, I went to the airport to resolve the issue and, surprisingly, found both missing pieces of luggage, about which no one knew all along, were there. I picked them up, as I was unsure if the one destined for Argentina would ever make it.
It baffles me how the airline could lose track of bags that were checked in and tagged properly on a direct flight.
Well, in the future, I will automatically exclude Ryanair from my ticket search. With the opportunity to travel again after two years of COVID, we plan to take several flights in the near future. However, we will definitely not be using Ryanair for any of them.