Originally Posted by thriftyguy

Not sure if anyone brought this up, but one of the proposed new board members was a Ryan Air executive and is apparently is one of the folks who made Ryan Air what it is now.

I booked and took a Ryan Air flight in Spain last spring--the pricing scheme and the lack of transparency is appalling. Flights started at $17, but one incurs additional fees for advanced seat assignment, additional fee for carryon underseat, additional fee for overhead compartment carryon, additional fee if your carryon exceeds a certain size (witnessed a passenger enlisting the help of others to break the wheels off her carryon so the bag would fit in the template cube), additional fee for checked luggage. All of the additional fees will incrementally increase between the time of ticket purchase and departure by a totally non-disclosed amount. Clearly the additional cost for a modestly oversized carryon the day of departure far exceeded the cost of a new carryon bag (I have since seen other YouTube videos showing this lady is not alone). Ryan Air priced their small bottled water at 3 euros--nothing was complimentary--thankfully our flight was only an hour. On top of that the seats were in poor condition and the seat belts were frayed.

I certainly hope that Southwest does not go the RyanAir route. I am not confident that these activist investors really care about the companies or the consumers.