Never Fly with RyanAir

Claudia climbed onto a Ryanair flight from Prestwick to Stanstead to get an onward flight to Germany. Her luggage did not go with her. Her bag was just an ordinary little black trolley bag - a BK22 in airline-speak. It was not on the carousel in Stanstead when she got there. She stood in a state of shock as her flight dispersed through the customs leaving her alone. She reported it at a desk and got directions to some back offices to register the missing luggage. The farce that emerged was an appalling catalogue of indifference, shockingly lax airline safety measures and buck-passing.

( Enter text from one of the letters written to a RyanAir customer sevice dept that appears not to actually exist)

Claudia never got over the loss of the bag and it was perhaps a further reason for her reluctance to visit me where I was. It was just so painful to lose so many personal items - including her precious camera filled with the memories of our last real holiday together. Whenever I visited her after that, there would be a mention of something that was lost or that she would have worn had she still had it. I have known people who have been violently mugged and robbed who have been less traumatised by the experience.