Europe's Ryanair vs. America's Southwest

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.

Because of their terrible customer service, denial of flight on multiple occasions to people I know for trivial reasons, and rip-off terms, I don't travel with them any more, and wouldn't encourage anyone else to either. So no, not everyone still buys the tickets. They are the worst airline I've encountered and I suspect this won't be a good strategy long-term.

My last appointment before the flight took longer than expected, and then the airport bus came a bit late and was further delayed in traffic, but I still had enough time. But at the airport I discovered I had lost my sunglasses and boarding pass. I tried to reprint the boarding pass at an airport computer (which wasn't free), but I couldn't, because you can't download the boarding pass in the last two hours before the flight, I mean, why can't you? So everything was going wrong, and my bad luck was compounded by the very unreasonable fee for them to print me a boarding pass. That made me a very unhappy customer. I still use them, because in the end I save more, but I have no loyalty to them, even though I am usually very loyal to brands I use regularly.

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.

Also consider that usually ground handling is a different company, the airline is paying the stewards wasting time on board anyway, but may have a per-bag price of the check ins.

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.

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.

http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/how-can-i-book-oxygen

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).

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.

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

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.

I welcome the reduction of the boarding card re-issue fee - £70 is just extortionate.

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.

They're like the anti-customer airline.