Worth noting this is only really relevant to those who are UK-based, as it applies to Ryanair flights out of the UK (including return flights). For those based elsewhere in Europe, then by using any Mastercard Prepaid card they can continue to avoid the absurd payment card surcharges (for the time being at least!).

For those (UK based or not) who never had a Mastercard Prepaid card in the first place, then there's no change here - you already get hit with the "administration fee" (£6 or €6) for card payments on a per-passenger, per-flight basis.

Rather, it's just a change in the 'free' payment method for flights originating from the UK (the 'free' payment method is changing from any Mastercard Prepaid card, to only being Ryanair's new own-brand Mastercard Prepaid card).

The UK's Office of Fair Trading (a quango) recently recommended to the government that they change the law in order to ban surcharges for debit card payments -however the government hasn't committed to this yet, and Ryanair might be able to avoid such a law anyway by dint of being an Irish (rather than UK) company.

They're often cheaper than other airlines, sometimes by a significant margin, even when taking into account the absurd payment card surcharges (for using a non-'free' payment method). That's the appeal.

Baggage fees might erode this price advantage - but lots of Europeans have got used to travelling with just hand luggage thus avoiding these fees - the majority of passengers on Ryanair flights will only be taking hand luggage with them (though this will differ between summer and winter of course).

Ryanair aren't quite in the business of offering flights for a few pence these days though - the rolling special offer fares are now more in the region of £10 / €15.