Well I use Ryanair from time to time as their base at Stansted airport is convenient to my part of London. And I have to say that I have never got any of these 0.01 fares, and the last time I went from London to Dublin I paid GBP 170 round trip, possibly less than BMI out of Heathrow but not by much.

Yet for my mainstream fare I am treated in exactly the same way. I really get a little tired of these excuses for Ryanair saying "well if you only pay GBP 5 what can you expect", because my company is not paying that sort of fare to them at all.

When you get to Ireland you will discover this is just the Irish business ethic, which all the public there (though not in Britain or the US) seem to readily accept. Businesses just state their terms and conditions, and everyone runs round to comply without any thought about consumer primacy or anything like that. It's a different world. Ireland is a small market (only 3 million population) and somewhat isolated, and many businesses were semi-monopolies in their sector, so I presume the culture grew up from there.