So I recently took my first two (REU-STN, MLA-BCN) Ryanair flights ever. I set my expectations very low, and I must say I’m somewhat surprised? Would I chose to fly again with them? Well they’d never be my first choice, nor my second, but it won’t be the end of the world.
I have a lot of respect for their bold fly or die mentality where they add minimal fuel to their flights, just enough to land at their destination. If a problem arises and they need to reroute they have two options, they either perform an emergency landing before running out of fuel or well… (I could be exaggerating a bit).
In practice this means there is a lot of pressure to be always on time, which in turn leads them to have very high aircraft utilization of up to 18 hours per day, which is truly staggering. Interestingly I was thinking about all this on a 737 MAX, I guess I’m thankful for software patches.
Their frugality is such that people are already lined up to board a plane that hasn’t even landed, leading to insanely brief boarding time. Which in turn aids even more with aircraft utilization. All their frugal practices have probably lead them to be the most profitable airline in the world. Honestly if they’d start charging for using the bathroom I wouldn’t even be mad, I’d had more respect for their business model.
They don’t even bother in having a corporate design that doesn’t yell it was done by some intern for free. At the very least I’ve accidentally discovered how to always have a whole row of seats for me for both of my flights.
Lastly, for an European company I have to commend their embrace of monopolistic practices. The reason why it is hard not fly with then is because for many routes they have complete control over them. I guess it is refreshing to see someone embracing capitalism in Europe.