In which ways? Apart from the low cost part and making flying utterly miserable now. It's not like he invented a new type of airplane
IMO they just forced other airlines to cut product and service to the bone. A tight, business-savvy guy spent all his waking hours figuring out how to further screw passengers (and continues to do so)
I do wonder if EU261 would have been required without low cost airlines.
> expecting flag carrier service from a discount airline.
Flag Carriers are all low-cost for short/mid haul now (and to an extent long-haul), as they've been dragged in to the gutter by Easyjet and Ryanair
> In which ways? Apart from the low cost part and making flying utterly miserable now. It's not like he invented a new type of airplane
I can only assume that you weren't around for the transition. Intra-EU flights cost multiples of the average industrial week's wages before Ryanair. Air travel was inaccessible or rarely accessible to the vast majority of people in the continent.
Ryanair single-handled brought the cost of European air fares down by two orders of magnitude and became the largest airline in the world by PAX to show for it. It absolutely revolutionised travel within Europe because it made point-to-point flights available to everyone, even the low-waged and students heading away for a city break with €20 return flights.
> A tight, business-savvy guy spent all his waking hours figuring out how to further screw passengers (and continues to do so)
And yet PAX love Ryanair, as evidenced by the ticket sales even though they love to complain. After all, for most people, the choice isn't between low-cost and full-service carriers. It's between low-cost carriers and not flying at all.
> Flag Carriers are all low-cost for short/mid haul now (and to an extent long-haul), as they've been dragged in to the gutter by Easyjet and Ryanair
Another perspective that's a lot closer to the truth is that Ryanair forced them to compete on price and actually serve the public which their flag purports to represent, but which the flag carriers completely ignored for most of their history.
I already conceded the cost point so I'll skip over all of that. I won't deny flying used to be expensive
> Two orders of magnitude
Haha, that's a good one. I've read quite a few threads on the topic of old ticket prices on the BA FlyerTalk forum, and people with actual old tickets from and good memories of the 80s and 90s quote prices not so extreme (while still perhaps expensive by today's standards). Ryanair didn't invent competition
> single-handedly
Erm, EasyJet?
> love Ryanair
they love traveling but hate Ryanair
> I can only assume that you weren't around for the transition
I was
> It absolutely revolutionised travel within Europe
I wish the revolution was in rail. I don't think Ryanair et al has been a net benefit for society
Every time I flew with Ryanair it's been because the price difference has been on orders of magnitude, or at least a difference of hundreds of euros. If it wasn't for the price, why would anybody choose to fly with a worse experience?
In 1990, Aer Lingus began "special reduced" fares for Dublin-London at IR £199 or €252 in 1990 money or €531 accounting for inflation. Today that's available from €15 with Ryanair, a reduction of 97%. Not quite two orders of magnitude, but not far off either.
The same story plays out on every legacy city pair, but when you start to include smaller cities which prior to Ryanair never had direct flights to anywhere other than their regional hub (if that), then the price difference can be closer to three orders of magnitude.
Overall, I think you and the other commenter are seriously underestimating the effect that Ryanair had on the European aviation.
Okay. That's an order of magnitude. I'll buy that.
Although, RyanAir really just moved the total price behind an opaque scheme of fees. People rarely pay 15€ total.
If we could see the average revenue per customer, I bet the reduction would be more like 50%. And they have decreased the quality of the experience of flying by far more than that.
Not all of them but I have flown between destinations for 10€ shortly after Covid that were easily between 300-400€ on old-school airlines 15 years ago. While those are exceptions there are cases where budget airlines even with all the bells and whistles are still substantially cheaper than legacy carriers.
> I can only assume that you weren't around for the transition. Intra-EU flights cost multiples of the average industrial week's wages before Ryanair. Air travel was inaccessible or rarely accessible to the vast majority of people in the continent.
That's not true. Otherwise you'd be gouged on every route not served by Ryan Air, which is definitely not the case.
Have they pushed prices down? Arguably, yes. But not by orders of magnitude.
> Otherwise you'd be gouged on every route not served by Ryan Air, which is definitely not the case.
Are there many routes not served by one of Ryanair/Easyjet/Wizzair? (The other two are on the Ryanair model).
> But not by orders of magnitude.
Looks like in 1980 a flight from Dublin to London was about 150-200 Irish pounds. 150 pounds is 189 euro without inflation, but factoring in inflation, 150 Irish pounds in 1980 is 899 euro today (easy to forget how much inflation there was in the 80s). While the Crowdstrike thing is currently stopping me from checking prices, Ryanair to Gatwick is usually like 30-50 euro these days. So that's an order of magnitude, anyway.
And Dublin to London is probably close to a best-case; it's short, and it was always a relatively busy route served by multiple flag carriers. Many routes would have been single-carrier. If you wanted to fly, say, Dublin to Athens back then, well, you probably weren't doing it direct, for a start, and it'd cost you a small fortune.
To me it seems disingenuous to only compare prices and not what you got as part of the ticket.
I imagine on that old ticket you could: pick up a phone and get help with anything, check luggage for free, take a carry-on for free, check in at the airport, free food/drinks on board, more staff on board, comfier seats, more leg room, could make changes/refund with fewer penalties. Oh and probably much better IRROPs support
If I price up a a Ryanair flight LGW-DUB with roughly some the above included, that's 347 EUR return - https://imgur.com/FPkbdec.png (I accounted £20 for drinks + food). (You can also get a LHR-DUB BA Business Class ticket for that!)
Again I concede flying is cheaper these days, but as demonstrated, the original claims of magnitude(s) aren't right, if we make a fairer comparison
You can argue people didn't need all those extra etc but that's a different topic and moving the goalposts
Anyway I suspect a hint of patriotism or profound appreciation for the service they offer is marring these discussions so it's all a bit fruitless
In which ways? Apart from the low cost part and making flying utterly miserable now. It's not like he invented a new type of airplane
IMO they just forced other airlines to cut product and service to the bone. A tight, business-savvy guy spent all his waking hours figuring out how to further screw passengers (and continues to do so)
I do wonder if EU261 would have been required without low cost airlines.
> expecting flag carrier service from a discount airline.
Flag Carriers are all low-cost for short/mid haul now (and to an extent long-haul), as they've been dragged in to the gutter by Easyjet and Ryanair