Originally Posted by
heraclitus
I've taken LCCs in the past and had positive experiences, but Ryanair is a bridge too far... the stories of the "eff you" customer service stance is more than I'm willing to deal with. Supposedly they've changed, but I'll give it another 5 years before trying them just to be safe.
I haven't been on Ryanair since 2006; so I can't comment on what they are like now. I did fly seven different segments with them between 2003-06 and had good luck with them. They are not a business traveler airline; you must get to the airport 2 hours in advance to make sure you don't run afoul of their timing rules (i.e., get to the counter 39 mins 59 secs before departure time and lose your seat and your money, as 40 mins is the cut-off).
In quite a few cases they use general aviation airports with runways of 6,000 feet or more where the local government or chamber of commerce is willing to build them a terminal. Beauvais, France, about 50 miles north of Paris, comes immediately to mind; when I was there in 2006 the landside operation was in a brand new building but airside was essentially a portable dance hall. I've never been there, but the abandoned air force base called Hahn Airport is Ryanair's most egregious example of referring an airport to a distant city (it is something like 124 km or 77 miles from Frankfurt; that would be like the owners of Washington County Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Maryland calling themselves "Washington").
They cut corners in other ways, by not using jetways; many if not all of their aircraft have airstairs built into both the front and rear left doors.
Also, all service items on board are for sale; I heard that the Ryanair FA compensation is based on a commission of a percentage of products sold. I'm not sure whether they still do duty-free.
If you can put up with all of the foregoing, you can get good deals with them. However, they have a ton of LCC competition now. The "legacy" or "flagship" airlines have really taken hits on intra-European service.