Hacker News Reader

Comment by jbb67 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know anyone who would fly on ryanair. If they were the only 'airline' flying somewhere I would consider that it's not possible to get to that place. As far as I'm concerned they only exist to spam up the flight listings

View on HN

For a lot of places in Europe, there is no other option. Ryanair has conquered connections to all smaller airports, where normally you'd need to change in Amsterdam/London/Frankfurt first, and they fly for 1/10th of the price most of the time. Yes, I hate them too, but if the options are a 2h flight with Ryanair for £30 or two 2h flights with BA for £300(or 2h flight + 5h train) then Ryanair wins 100% of the time.

The other option is to not go to that place. If you're starting in that place, the other option is to walk out and never go there again.

Yes, I'll make sure to never go home again. Good shout.

I'd rather go by train, then.

I am a train fan, used to do it all the time with the family though Europe. Now I can not afford it anymore and flying is always cheaper. Not much faster with the obstacles, nor more confinient, but simply more economic.

How on earth that is possible remains one of the best kept secrets (to me). But I am sure there is a boat load of tax money involved.

AFAICT, it mostly comes down to poor government regulation and wastefulness and monopolism. Trains get guaranteed right-of-way and don't have to compete with each other for the same routes, but airplanes do. Airplanes surely use orders of magnitude more energy/fuel per passenger to move people between two points, but incredibly they still cost less.

America is probably the poster child for how bad this can be, by looking at Amtrak. For all but the shortest routes along the northeast corridor, taking the train is slower, many times MUCH slower (like going cross-country), yet it can cost far, far more. Taking an Amtrak from DC to Seattle is horribly expensive and takes days, compared to an airplane which is a fraction of the cost and takes 6 hours or so. Why would anyone take an Amtrak for a long route like this? Mainly, it's just people who want the quaint experience of "seeing the country"; for actual travel between these points it makes no economic sense whatsoever. Even on the northeast corridor it doesn't make much sense for many cases/routes. Even worse, it's frequently much cheaper to take a bus (such as MegaBus) for inter-city trips in the NE corridor than Amtrak, if you don't mind it being slow (but not that much slower than Amtrak).

Even in Europe it can be difficult to do cross-country, even though the connections are excellent, fast, and on time. The problem is cost - I can travel within one country for reasonably little money, and 99% of the time beating flying on cost. But taking a train from Paris to Berlin or Berlin to Warsaw? Suddenly we're looking at hundreds of euros, in which case it's almost always cheaper to fly. I don't really understand why.

They are Europe's biggest airline by passenger trips, by quite a margin. I know one person who won't fly with them, but I don't believe you could inhabit such a rarefied bubble that everyone you know can and will avoid Ryanair every time.

I wouldn't fly on anything other than Ryanair because every other airline is mad expensive. Yes, some things about it suck, but at least I can afford to fly, thanks to them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com