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Europe's Ryanair vs. America's Southwest
- milkmanjr 13y agoI think it would be more worthwhile to compare Ryanair to Spirit Airlines.
- cylinder 13y agoCorrect. 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 13y agoCorrect. 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.
- bane 13y agoIt's because Southwest tries to offer "value" while Ryan tries to offer "cheapness".
- patrickk 13y agoRyanair was heavily influenced by Southwest airlines in the past. Of course, Michael O'Leary took Southwest's model, and took it way further than the originators did. "To turn Ryanair into the profit-making machine it is today required strict discipline, together with inspiration from the United States. In the early 1990s, Ryan sent O'Leary to Texas to find out how Southwest Airlines, an upstart that was taking advantage of aviation deregulation, was making profits with lower fares. Southwest was one of a new generation of airlines undercutting their established rivals by doing away with the 'frills'. They only served snacks on board instead of full meals, for instance, hence the nickname peanut airlines. Southwest scheduled its planes and its staff for more flights each day, and it flew to smaller airports where it could negotiate cheaper landing charges. When O'Leary saw how Southwest was making money, it was a "road to Damascus moment," he says, "it was blatantly obvious that this was the way forward."" Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22888304 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22888304
- TillE 13y agoLooking 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 13y agoYep. 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.
- Sarkie 13y agoHaving flown to Berlin recently via RyanAir and then EasyJet. EasyJet all the way, from the booking to the day of flight, all aspects EasyJet do better and make me less stressed. RyanAir is awful.
- salient 13y agoSouthwest - 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 13y agoYou 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
- kposehn 13y ago> 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.
- laumac 13y agoTrue, they care about local competition. But they also care about growing stockholders' equity, of which one method is improving profitability. Since RyanAir has shown some prowess in this regard (admittedly through solicitation of subsidies, but also with an aggressive model), Southwest would certainly have some interest. We're talking almost 50% greater net profit on a third of the revenue. Sure that exact comparison is debatable, but the contrast is nonetheless interesting, even if done with a novel approach.
- ubernostrum 13y agoI 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.
- lnanek2 13y agoKind 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 13y agoI 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 13y ago> 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.
- jusben1369 13y agoJust FYI. Boarding is considerably faster on Southwest for two reasons. One, the well known open seating policy. Two though is that because bags fly free more people check them. This significantly reduces the average time it takes to board and get settled as less people have less bags.
- HackerGarth27 13y agoRyanair 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.
- benzoate 13y agoComplain 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 13y agoPerhaps 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 13y agoYup, then double it for having the audacity to take a bag.
- alexkus 13y agoI 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 13y agoOh 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.
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- endijs 13y agobtw - Ryanair is becoming more friendly (yes, it's strange combination, I know). Read here: http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-rolls-out-more-customer-service-improvements http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-rolls-out-more-custom... 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.
- inglesp 13y agoBecoming more friendly... from an almost impossibly low baseline.
- effn 13y agoBoarding 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 13y agoIt depends on the airport, has nothing to do with the airline.
- switch007 13y agoI had to check and re-check that the link was actually the Ryanair website and it was a Ryanair announcement. I welcome the reduction of the boarding card re-issue fee - £70 is just extortionate.
- ericd 13y agoHoly shit, 70 pounds to reprint your boarding pass?! That's more than many short haul flight tickets. Is that a typo?
- jusben1369 13y agoI 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.
- ukoki 13y agoI 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 13y agoI don't know if you've ever read an ayn rand novel, but none of her heroes ever try to cheat people.
- ukoki 13y agoTrue — 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 13y agoIf 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.
- LordHumungous 13y agoTechnically neither does Ryan air.
- agwa 13y ago> 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 13y agoThis 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.
- khuey 13y agoAs the other poster alluded to, this is no longer a rule for domestic flights inside the US now that 100% of bags are screened. It still applies to international flights (presumably for customs reasons).
- AaronIG 13y agoThis 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.
- bane 13y agoSince airlines started to nickle and dime travelers for basic services, like luggage, I've definitely noticed a much more harried and long delay with people getting to their seats and getting situated. I used to remember being able to spend quite a bit of time leisurely reading from a magazine or a book, now I'm constantly getting jostled well after we've started to taxi.
- michaelochurch 13y agoFor 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.
- CalRobert 13y agoEveryone 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 13y agoDublin 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 13y agoThat'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 13y agoAs 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.
- supercanuck 13y agoSouthwest is the wrong comparison. Spirit airlines is the low cost satan of the US Airline market
- Steuard 13y agoI came here to say exactly that. Southwest feels reasonably mainstream to me these days. (And Spirit is terrible.)
- BorgHunter 13y agoSpirit 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).
- bpicolo 13y agoFrontier as well, I learned recently.
- Nux 13y agoHave 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 13y agoSwiss air is top notch. I can understand people wanting to fly very cheap, but come on Ryan air ? tried once , never again...
- peckrob 13y agoSouthwest 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.
- jmspring 13y agoAll 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.
- 0xfaded 13y agoI 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)
- reillyse 13y agoOnly 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-michael-oleary-investors-future http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/05/ryanair-mich...
- waffl 13y agoI 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 13y agoI 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.
- bulte-rs 13y agoHaving 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.
- richliss 13y agoPeople 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-pilots-concerned-about-passenger-safety http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/dispatches-ryanair-p... 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.
- holograham 13y agopure 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.