Originally Posted by Raffles

When Ryanair works, it works fine. It has, for example, opened up many towns like Carcassone and Biarritz to British tourists who previously had no way of getting there, and has also been a massive boom to the British 'French second home' market. We use them to fly to Lubeck because my partners parents live near it.

However .... you need to look at the pros and cons each time. The original poster in this thread was flying from Frankfurt to Stockholm. These are possibly the two most out-of-the-way airports used by Ryanair, and the fare quoted was not far off what LH wanted for a direct flight. It would have been a ludicrous decision to choose FR in these circumstances.

In general, I would want a Ryanair flight to be at least £100 return cheaper than an equally well timed flight on a scheduled carrier. £100, in general, offsets the lack of lounge facilities I'd have with BA, the cost of inflight food and drink, the lack of priority check-in, the lack of any FF miles and the generally unpleasant FR in-flight experience ("no, I do NOT want to buy a scratchcard, thank you").