
Europe's Ryanair vs. America's Southwest - todsul
https://flightfox.com/tradecraft/polyester-airlines-europe-vs-america
======
ukoki
I love Ryanair — it's like Ayn Rand created an airline. Every flight is a
battle of wits between the me, doing my best to _only_ pay the insanely low
ticket price, and the airline, attempting to trap me at every turn, using
every scumbag trick in the book. The irony is that the people who vilify the
company are the same people subsidizing my ticket by refusing to engage in the
challenge.

Having said that, due to increased taxes I think the hayday of insanely cheap
flights is over. I remember flying London -> Slovenia once for £20 return. The
train from the central London to get to the airport? £25.

~~~
dantheman
I don't know if you've ever read an ayn rand novel, but none of her heroes
ever try to cheat people.

~~~
ukoki
True — I didn't mean to slight Ayn Rand or her books. But if there ever was an
airline where the passenger's success (super-cheap flight versus being
horrifically screwed over) is the direct measure of his or her individual
skill, effort, and creativity, it's Ryanair.

~~~
clarkm
If anything, I'd say that Southwest has much more in common with Rand's heroes
than Ryanair. To stretch this ridiculous comparison further:

Like Southwest, Roark didn't nickel and dime his clients. Rather, he simply
pursued his own architectural ideals: simplicity, elegance, form following
function -- to hell with everyone else. You can see the same in Southwest.
They eliminated the artificial seating charts, standardized the ticket prices,
and allowed bags to be checked for free. They simplified logistics, improved
the experience, and didn't think twice about bewildering passengers.

------
CalRobert
Everyone complains about Ryanair, but they still buy the tickets. What the
hell do you expect? I fly from Dublin to London every two weeks like clockwork
and Ryanair is perfectly fine for the job. All I need is a bus in the sky (I'd
actually prefer a train, but nobody's built a tunnel yet).

Why should I subsidize someone else's bag, seating choice, or forgetfulness?
Don't think of them as fees, think of them as discounts.

For what it's worth, on the rare occasion that Cityjet (run by Air France) is
cheaper I take that, but this is only once every few months. It IS far nicer,
with free wine (seconds if you'd like), decent sandwiches, desert chocolates,
and a landing at LCY.

~~~
Kudos
Dublin here also. I only fly in to the mainland a couple of times a year and I
avoid Ryanair like the plague. If I have to pay €200 more to fly out of
Charles De Gaull instead of Beauvais I'll do it every time. No 2 hour bus ride
to the airport. No spending an hour and a half standing queueing to check in
luggage, then queueing for security, then queueing to board. Then standing
around outside learning our plane hasn't been disembarked from yet and
queueing again.

Edit: just checked some random dates for CDG/BVA and the price difference on a
return flight was < €100.

The yearly cost to me is obviously not remotely near yours, so I think we're
both making reasonable decisions here.

~~~
CalRobert
That's a really good point - also, Dublin-London is a bit of an outlier
because it's from one major airport to another reasonably easy to access
airport (Stansted, a 47 minute £12 train ride from Liverpool St.)

If I had to fly from Glasgow to Paris I'd be heading to airports over an hour
out of the city on each end of the trip and it would be brutal. As it is,
getting to Dublin airport is kind of a pain; I usually take bus 16 or 41 but I
wish they would just put a DublinBikes station at the airport.

~~~
macNchz
As a broke college student I flew Paris->Glasgow on RyanAir for €0, only
paying the €10 of tax...I was very excited until I spent more money and time
riding busses to and from the airports than on the flight itself.

Also, the Beauvais airport (at the time, I don't know if they've expanded) was
less an 'airport' and more a doublewide that they parked some planes next to.

------
agwa
> The checking of any bags should be avoided as they slow down loading the
> plane, inflate the turnover time, and end up costing the airlines more than
> they are worth.

Are the benefits that significant? After all, boarding times are significantly
slowed down by people trying to cram suitcases that ought to be checked into
overhead bins. Also, quite a bit of carry-on luggage ends up being checked
anyways once the overhead bins fill up. I would love to see some real analysis
on this.

~~~
rmk2
This isn't real analysis. However:

The problem with checked luggage first arises if somebody doesn't get onto the
plane in time even though their luggage has already been loaded. This
essentially means that somebody has to look through all the (already loaded)
luggage to remove that specific piece, which, depending on how deeply it's
buried, might take considerable amounts of time. This isn't a problem with
hold luggage, since there cannot be any hold luggage aboard a plane without a
corresponding person.

~~~
AaronIG
This isn't a huge problem for Southwest though, as checked baggage for
domestic flights do not have to be pulled (and rarely ever are) in the United
States. It'll be stored at the final destination printed on the tag until you
pick it up, or you file a baggage claim to have it sent back.

------
peckrob
Southwest is not really a "budget" carrier anymore.

They may have started out that way in the 70s when the level of service on
traditional mainline carriers was much higher than it is now, but since then,
most other carriers have adopted elements of Southwest's business model. Some
of the mainline carriers have even gone further (see no free bags, charging
for assigned seats, etc).

Especially now that Southwest flies to major airports (DFW, BOS, ATL, the NYC
area airports, SFO, etc), I would classify them pretty much the same as the
rest of the majors. The only thing they don't do that the majors do is allow
their fares to appear on aggregator sites. That, and the free-for-all seating
(which I can't stand, but that's a different complaint).

In fact, unless you book far in advance or catch a fare sale, Southwest is
amazingly expensive to fly on. A couple of months ago I had to travel on short
notice (death in the family, only 3 days until the funeral). An airfare on
Southwest from Nashville to Boston was a 56% above the competing mainline
carriers. And if I flew into Providence, which would have been more
convenient, it was an astounding ~75% higher than Delta or US Airways.

------
kposehn
> Although Southwest was once considered a pioneer amongst low-cost carriers,
> it has remained just that; a dated, bonnet-wearing airline. If Southwest
> ever hopes to offer it's customers lower rates or increase their profit
> margin, they are going to have to ditch the sweet tea and start drinking
> some of Ryanair's killer Kool-Aid.

Last I checked, Southwest doesn't care a whit about Ryanair. They care about
competing in the US and here they have the lead.

~~~
ubernostrum
I don't think Southwest cares about Ryanair.

But it is interesting to note that Southwest's "low-cost" reputation is, at
this point, mostly based on memory and advertising, not reality.

Southwest often isn't the lowest fare on a given itinerary anymore, for
example, and airports where Southwest is the dominant carrier are also,
mostly, those which have seen the largest fare increases over the past decade.

And that's without getting into the fact that Southwest is now experimenting
with ancillary-revenue programs through things like buying into Group A, etc.

~~~
rwc
It depends on the flight... SWA's strength remains low-cost, last-minute
fares. SWA doesn't reward you for planning ahead like other airlines does, but
they really shine when you're buying less than seven days in advance.

~~~
nostrademons
If the flights are still available. I usually end up booking on United (for an
SFO -> somewhere east of the Mississippi flight) if I have to do something
last-minute, because I can often still get direct or 1-stop flights to my
destination, while Southwest will often have only 2-stop+ ones that take 12
hours and cost more.

I find that very often United fares are lower than Southwest anyway. Perhaps
it's because SFO is their hub.

Virgin is another surprise - a couple times I've ended up getting SFO -> BOS
or SFO -> JFK flights that are cheaper than anything else on Virgin America,
even though it's supposedly a "premium" airline. I think they may be offering
specials to build up repeat customers on the route, though.

------
salient
Southwest - the developer who charges you $5 for a game, in full.

Ryanair - the developer who gives you the game for free/for $1, and makes you
pay through the nose with in-game purchases.

~~~
jgreen10
You can even buy oxygen on Ryanair flights :)

[http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/how-can-i-book-
oxygen](http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/how-can-i-book-oxygen)

------
supercanuck
Southwest is the wrong comparison.

Spirit airlines is the low cost satan of the US Airline market

~~~
BorgHunter
Spirit Airlines has one particular fee which is entirely absurd. In addition
to the requisite checked bags fee and carry-on bag fee, you're charged a fee
for booking a flight over the phone...or _online_. Yes, the booking option
which involves no actual person, and so is cheapest for the airline, costs
money. The only way to avoid the fee is to book your ticket from a live agent
_at the airport_.

Clearly, they do it because booking a flight at the airport is absurdly
inconvenient and so few people will do it, rather than as a means of defraying
the cost of hiring a customer service agent. But that, combined with their
nasty reputation of seeking to extract every last dime from your wallet
(someone else mentioned Ryanair as being as if Ayn Rand started an airline
company, and Spirit certainly seems like that as well) prevents me from being
willing to ever book a flight with them. Even though, counting the fees,
they've often been the cheapest option on a flight I've needed, I prefer the
second-cheapest airline, which is usually Southwest (unless I don't need to
check a bag, in which case United usually wins).

------
milkmanjr
I think it would be more worthwhile to compare Ryanair to Spirit Airlines.

~~~
cylinder
Correct. Both suffer poor customer satisfaction ratings.

Southwest on the other hand has some of the highest satisfaction, and in an
ironic twist, actually provides more service than legacy carriers now do --
its prices are comparable, or even higher than legacy but they include 2 free
checked bags, no fee for changing flights, free television, free snacks, etc.
while legacy carriers have stripped everything down to pay as you go.

~~~
jdmichal
Correct. It's kind of disingenuous to call Southwest a "discount" airline.
It's very rarely that I can find a Southwest flight for significantly cheaper
(or more expensive) than another airline. However, the lack of additional fees
above that baseline often makes them a better deal.

------
TillE
Looking at only two options almost inevitably presents a false dichotomy.
Ryanair is slightly more profitable, but EasyJet is bigger, offers similarly
cheap prices, and while it's no all-inclusive luxury flight, they certainly
don't attempt to screw you at every step.

~~~
andybak
Yep. I will happily fly any budget airline except Ryanair.

Usually once you factor in all the extra costs and inconveniences then they
aren't cheaper at all. Plus it makes booking and flying stressful and
miserable.

------
benzoate
Complain about Ryanair all you want, but I flew from Marrakech - Morocco
(Africa!) to Stanstead - UK for about £40 (~$65 USD), including 1 checked bag.
It was uncomfortable, but I got there. You can barely even get a train to
London from my city (Nottingham) that cheaply.

~~~
drakeandrews
Perhaps not if you buy your tickets last minute, but if you book 2-3 weeks in
advance and pay more than ~£20 you're being robbed.

~~~
benzoate
Yup, then double it for having the audacity to take a bag.

~~~
alexkus
I think he/she was talking about the train tickets.

Walk-up/on-the-day fares for train tickets in the UK are very expensive.

Picking London to Edinburgh as an example (~400 miles in ~4.5 hours) you'd pay
£125 off-peak and £150 peak fare for a train today (there are generally 2 an
hour).

Booking in advance (up to ~84 days in advance) you can get those same tickets
as cheap as £24 but you're tied to a specific departure time/date (and
changing date/time can be expensive).

~~~
benzoate
Oh yeah, of course. I forgot about advance tickets because there weren't any
available to get me to Stansted for my flight (needed to arrive by 12pm).

Even now the cheapest tickets from Nottingham to Stansted are £52 sans
railcard for the end of January. Maybe Nottingham-Stansted airport is a
special case?

Some digging and there are advance tickets to Ely available for £5, and Ely to
Stansted airport is £14 for a regular ticket.

~~~
alexkus
> Some digging and there are advance tickets to Ely available for £5, and Ely
> to Stansted airport is £14 for a regular ticket.

Yes, there are plenty of cases where you can find cheaper tickets by
"splitting" the journey. Many can be found with sites like
[http://www.splityourticket.co.uk/](http://www.splityourticket.co.uk/) but not
in this particular case, good spot on splitting at Ely.

Ah, that particular case is because there are no advance fares for the train
between Ely and Stansted Airport, so most of the train ticket sites don't
bother to look for advance fares for any of the legs.

------
reillyse
Only problem is that people stop using Ryanair. I've been burned a few times
and finally sued them in the small claims court(and won). I've never flown
with them since and have quite happily paid more money to avoid. I see this
happening for a lot of my friends, and I think the "fuck you" customer service
attitude they have is giving way to a much better one as seen by O'Leary's
recent comments about wanting to reform their nasty image and "stop
unnecessarily pissing people off".

[http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/05/ryanair-
mich...](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/05/ryanair-michael-
oleary-investors-future)

------
endijs
btw - Ryanair is becoming more friendly (yes, it's strange combination, I
know). Read here: [http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-rolls-out-more-
custom...](http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-rolls-out-more-customer-
service-improvements)

Quote: Ryanair, Europe’s favourite low fares airline, today (28 Nov) confirmed
that from Sunday all Ryanair passengers may now bring a second small carry-on
bag (35 x 20 x 20cm) on board, in addition to a free 10kg cabin bag allowance,
while its boarding card reissue fee has been cut from €70/£70 to €15/£15 for
customers who have already checked-in online.

These latest customer service improvements have been rolled out across the
entire Ryanair network and follow the launch of the new Ryanair.com home page,
24 hour grace periods (for minor booking errors), the introduction of quiet
flights (pre-8am and post-9pm), with standard airport bag fees to be cut from
€60/£60 from 3rd January and fully allocated seating (from 1st February)
already in place.

~~~
effn
Boarding card reissue fee? It's been a few years since I've been on a Ryanair
flight, but all the other airlines I've used recently have QR scanners now,
you no longer need a boarding card to board a plane.

~~~
megablast
It depends on the airport, has nothing to do with the airline.

------
lnanek2
Kind of weird viewpoint it is written from. As someone who flies every week,
usually Delta and Southwest, I would absolutely love it if Southwest charged
lower ticket prices and huge fees to people who bring bags, change their
flights, or don't preprint. I'm not the one slowing down the flight with that,
so give me the option of a lower price and encourage others to be similarly
efficient. Meanwhile the author acts like these are bad things.

~~~
grecy
I think you'd find the average American wouldn't be happy with that.

Consumption and the consumer are king, so Americans want every available
option, now.

See: American cars vs. the rest of the world, American houses vs. the rest of
the world, etc. etc.

~~~
derleth
> American cars vs. the rest of the world, American houses vs. the rest of the
> world

This is entirely due to how cheap land is over here, and it's not even true in
a large number of places in the US. Compare New York City to the Midwest, or
(especially) the Great Plains.

~~~
grecy
I wasn't solely talking about the size of the house, but also the sheer amount
of consumer crap that's jammed into every available square inch.

~~~
derleth
Which isn't true of everyone, or even of most people.

------
waffl
I really got burned by Ryanair's miserable 'visa check' stamp policy. After
checking in online (mandatory), passing through all of Gatwick security,
waiting an hour for the delayed flight at the gate, the attendant simply
denied me entry saying he was not qualified to decide if my visa with a clear
3 years before expiry was valid or not and I would have to exit back to the
counter and pass back in through security, obviously an impossible 60+ minute
process. Oddly departing Berlin, the stamp was provided at the gate.

Back at the counter, the sales attendant tried to offer me a flight to Bremen
for five times the cost of the original ticket leaving 8 hours later. When I
asked why I would want a flight to Bremen vs my original destination of
Berlin, she simply shrugged her shoulders saying it departed sooner...

Needless to say I cannot in good conscience ever give money to this admittedly
clever/cunning corporation. Easyjet is not much more and significantly more
humane.

~~~
grey-area
I suspect that sometimes Ryanair aren't denying for the stated reasons, but
because their plane is overbooked - sometimes they'll come up with any excuse
to deflight people, without caring about the effect on customers and travel
plans. There must be a reason they're so keen to knock people off some
flights.

They're like the anti-customer airline.

------
jusben1369
I think the missing piece of this analysis are the other players in the
respective markets. The assumption here is that Southwest can drop elements of
their service and still keep the same prices. But competition might dictate if
they offered less services than their peer airlines then they would lose
customers to those peer airlines. I'm not sure about Europe but perhaps there
is no one close in price to Ryanair so there under little competitive pressure
to increase what they provide for their price.

------
richliss
People talk about RyanAir from two viewpoints; "they were fine as I knew how
to not get ripped off", or "I got ripped off and I'll never use them again".

Look into the safety of RyanAir - pilots scared about how little fuel is
onboard, landings with damage have happened too often for comfort etc. and if
you're in the first group you would be insane not to become part of the
second.

[http://lowcostaccidents.wordpress.com/category/ryanair/](http://lowcostaccidents.wordpress.com/category/ryanair/)

[http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dispatches-
ryanair-p...](http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dispatches-ryanair-
pilots-concerned-about-passenger-safety)

Look into Michael O'Leary and what he's said and done, and then ask yourself
if you think he's someone you trust your life with.

I don't, and I'll fly anyone but RyanAir out of the UK. The difference in
price is often a few pounds at most, and for me I'd rather cut costs
elsewhere.

------
HackerGarth27
Ryanair can be viewed as the "extremist" budget-airline. Although this article
may propose a great dichotomy, I think it illustrates the direction for lots
of low-cost airlines. Ryanair is controversial and has a business model that
is being duplicated across the world. Even Southwest created a pledge in 2012
to drastically increase ancillary revenue.

------
0xfaded
I don't understand how one can vilify things like requiring the customer to
print out a boarding pass when the business model in question is to offer the
cheapest possible flights.

Ryanair operates to the maximum possible efficiency, and whenever you fail to
comply with their procedures you cost the company that efficiency. Something
as simple as printing a boarding pass requires printers at the desks, a person
or machine to print the pass, and disrupts the process flow. Yes charging
ludicrous penalties is profitable, but it certainly deters people from not
following the rules.

I would sooner complain about not being able to present my boarding pass as a
QR code on my phone screen. That would require some capital investment on part
of Ryanair, but would not cost them in efficiency. If my phone dies or I can't
open the email, well thats my fault and I probably owe them the 60 pounds (or
whatever it is)

------
bulte-rs
Having had the pleasure of working for RyanAir myself I can only say that they
run a very efficient operation. Every part of the process is structured for
time efficiency (yes, this includes the pre-queue ;-)).

Can't say anything bad about them actually, never had any horrible experiences
while flying with and/or for them.

------
Nux
Have had decent experiences with RyanAir to be honest; I think Wizzair is
worse - not only this but they have much strayed from the concept of "low
cost" that made them famous.

In many situations it is cheaper to just fly with BA, Lufthansa or other
European companies.

~~~
camus2
Swiss air is top notch. I can understand people wanting to fly very cheap, but
come on Ryan air ? tried once , never again...

------
jmspring
All RyanAir flights are non-stop? Maybe things have changed, but when I last
tried to use them some years ago, they defined the term milk run.

------
holograham
pure scamming is clearly not a long-term strategy. Hard to argue with current
profits but Ryan Air has been in business quite awhile. Perhaps they do know
what they are doing.

------
michaelochurch
For all the vilification of Ryanair, most US airlines combine British Airways
prices and Ryanair service + charges.

Ryanair is what US airlines would be if they charged appropriately.

