Originally Posted by
thebigben
I should add that OP was comparing it to Club Europe. Bit of a clickbait title.
Compared to ET, it holds its own if your risk / annoyance tolerance as well as your price sensitivity are higher. That's all
And in some cases more than others, if Ryanair flies to places that BA doesn't or if the prices are unusually different. Admittedly Ryanair will be a lot more often a better deal flying from somewhere else than London.
Definitely FR have a valuable place in the choices open to customers, not least the fact that Ryanair go to an absolutely huge number of places. Maybe only once a day, but nevertheless their network is quite amazing. However the OP here was on a Flex ticket and got lucky with the empty middle seat (which I would say 70% of the time wouldn't happen). So the Flex cost to NOC I would guess would be about £85 or more one way, which is roughly the same as LUX from T3, many LGW and some LHR Spanish destinations in Club Europe if there is a Saturday night involved. UK domestic CE is readily available for around the £110 without the Saturday night. That would include a better airport than STN, inflght catering, Fast Track / First Wing and lounge access, plus the Avios. So I think BA is competitive on that level.
Now the points made by
MiraculousM are very valid too, however the first HEX gets into T5 at 05:30, the first Piccadilly line from Central London at 06:39 if we ignore the 24 hour weekend service. Now allowing 1 hour before departure (so 15 more than the minimum with checked luggage), only 4 services leave before 06:30 to BCN, DUB, EDI and BHD. Before 07:40 is about 3 dozen in all, hence the overwhelming majority of services take off during more sensible hours. Now I appreciate some people like to have more time than this, so it's good that we have the choice.