[bojangleslover]

About 1/3 of their revenue is ancillary (the dark patterns are there to cause ancillary revenue).

I just flew from Bournemouth to Alicante on Ryanair for £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x. The dark patterns took me about 10min to click through. Doing the math, that means my time would have to be worth $1500/hr which is higher than the take-home (not billable) of senior partners at law firms.

Ryanair has severely improved my life, especially for my fellow sun-deprived Northern Europeans.

[1] https://investor.ryanair.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Ryan...

[rafram]

> £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x.

???

Maybe round-trip at a peak time. But if you're talking about one-way flights, you can fly across the entire country (NYC to SFO) for <$150 without hunting for a deal. DC to Miami is $50 (£37) each way, all of next month.

[square_usual]

To be fair, those are on Frontier, so it's roughly equivalent to Ryanair.

[rafram]

Yes, GP was discussing Ryanair flight prices and claimed that a "similar flight in the US" would be more expensive. I'm pointing out that similar flights in the US are actually cheaper, and we have budget airlines too.

[dawnerd]

I just spot checked and you can even find round trip for about that cross country. There was even some delta flights showing up really cheap.

Too bad they’re never cheap when I need to travel…

[rithdmc]

I don't find Ryanair much cheaper than Aer Lingus. In my experience there's up to a 20% premium, and I just cross checked the Alicante route for next week with the same results.

Compared to the high likelihood of delays or cancelled flights with Ryanair, I think it's worth it for peace of mind.

[rsynnott]

Aer Lingus is a slightly weird case; they have essentially become a budget airline (at least for their European business) to compete with Ryanair, but they haven't yet gotten around to adopting most of the dark patterns.

[rithdmc]

I don't think it's a weird case to compare two budget airlines to demonstrate why I think one is better than the other.

[rsynnott]

Well, the thing is they historically weren't a budget airline. They've taken on some budget airline attributes, but mostly not the dark patterns. Yet. They'll get there.

[ponector]

Ryanair is the biggest airline in Europe. Everyone competes with them. I found if you are traveling with family, need a checked bag and seats - Ryanair has no price advantage over other players.

[rob74]

Aer Lingus is a budget airline? And here I was still thinking that they're the flag carrier of Ireland...

(of course, they can be both at the same time)

[alistairSH]

Their trans-Atlantic flights are ok and cheap relative to United (out of IAD, to points in continental Europe). Their EU flights are a noticeable step down.

[ahartmetz]

IIRC Aer Lingus could already be described like that 10-15 years ago. I remember it as cheap but decent.

[rsynnott]

Yeah, they went price-competitive with Ryanair a while back.

[arjie]

As a bit of a bonus for the latter airline, you are permitted to yell "Forth Aer Lingus!" as you charge headlong towards your seat.

RyanAir is ultra-budget. You need to be ready for the whole thing, but often you can get something much cheaper. As an example, looking for London to Belfast next month, RyanAir is a fifth the price.

[rithdmc]

Thanks, I hadn't seen a price difference like that.

I'm unsure about the following. Do you know if flights between London and Belfast be covered under EU airline rules regarding missed and delayed flights?

[gib444]

The UK copy-pasted EU261 into "UK261", which of course covers intra UK flights. That UK law would apply, not EU261 (London and Belfast are both in the UK)

[rithdmc]

> London and Belfast are both in the UK

My question was more to do with the European Single Market, and the considerations given to Belfast during Brexit negotiations. That's where my ambiguity came from.

Thanks for the info!

[wodenokoto]

That math is completely off.

Those incidentals would not increase your fare 5-8 times. So that some passengers fall into the dark patterns cannot possibly make up for the price difference nor can the price difference to US be the base for your cost savings.

[bojangleslover]

>Those incidentals would not increase your fare 5-8 times Oh I see what you're saying. What I'm saying is, what's the alternative? Another more expensive airline whose online check-in takes 5min instead of 10min? I'm contending that even with the dark patterns, my downside is only 1.5x cost, which is still far, far below a non-budget airline.

>nor can the price difference to US be the base for your cost savings Yeah I agree it's not perfect — but as someone who used to live in the US it's a base for me

[matt-p]

I think that sometimes we think just in terms of the raw price of the incidentals rather than the effect of reducing demand for incidentals.

The main reason Ryanair is so cheap is that they have the fastest turn around time in the industry. This means the utilisation rate is far higher. Part of the reason they're able to turn around so quickly is that they take less hold luggage (so unloading/loading is not holding them up), un-allocated seating means they get to overbook/bin pack better, worth thinking through the second order effects.

[bojangleslover]

After reading their SEC filing I would push back on that slightly.

I think the main reason Ryanair is so cheap is that they get insanely good deals with the airports because they bring so much business to the region. Ie Alicante, a secondary airport, is somewhat tourist-dependent.

Ryanair makes a deal with the municipally-owned airport and says hey, we're going to bring thousands of Brits and Germans to you (with full wallets). The municipality gives a good deal in return.

There's also the 1.5x revenue multiplier from ancillary revenue.

Finally, they only own one type of airplane. Makes the maintenance etc easier.

[rsynnott]

Ryanair haven't had unallocated seating for years (I don't think it's generally allowed anymore); if you don't choose a seat you just get one allocated for you.

[matt-p]

only at check-in, other airlines will give you free seat selection at booking or 72hrs before.

[sceptic123]

Or to look at it another way, they're perfectly happy to let you stand in a queue, outside, on the runway, in the cold/heat, waiting for them to unload/load the plane that has just landed and is often already late.

[rsynnott]

My personal favourite is Ryanair in Brussels airport. Ryanair generally use airstairs, and, as you say, often queueing outside. Brussels airport doesn't allow the use of airstairs. So Ryanair found a solution to be appropriately annoying; you get on the plane via a jet bridge... from an isolated building which has to be reached by bus, and which has no inside waiting space so you still have the opportunity to queue in the rain!

(In fairness, they don't _always_ do this at Brussels airport, sometimes using a normal jet bridge).

[marysol5]

Last time I flew from Brussels was in COVID, and with Ryanair. Was sat in the bar monitoring the app because it was still "No gate" 20 minutes before departure.

Decided to head down and work out why, only to get shouted at by a very angry staff member as they wanted to depart early....

[rsynnott]

Well, I suppose the argument is that Ryanair et al fundamentally changed the European market, and without them the European market would be like the US market, and way more expensive. Which is definitely _plausible_, but kinda counterfactual.

[drnick1]

Flying in the US in not more expensive in my experience, on a per mile basis at least.

[cromka]

> A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x

Absolutely not. Not even close. Maybe in peak season, but then you can't fly Ryanair for 50 GBP in peak season either.

[gib444]

Found a Frontier ticket next week BWI-MIA £42 ($56) [0]

[0] https://www.google.com/travel/flights/booking?tfs=CBwQAhpFEg...

[chrismorgan]

> The dark patterns took me about 10min to click through.

I find that difficult to believe. Ten minutes is a long time.

[rithdmc]

Whenever I have to book Ryanair, there's a lot of clicking back and forth between screens to confirm I've made the right choices.

Ten minutes is a long time. That's the purpose of dark patterns.

[petre]

> Ryanair has severely improved my life, especially for my fellow sun-deprived Northern Europeans.

Great. Now quit bachelor partying in Spain before they throw objects at you. I thought East Europeans were the worst tourists before I enountered the English and Russians. The elderly are usually fine.

[dspillett]

> Now quit bachelor partying in Spain before they throw objects at you.

While a fair number of us do a lot to earn our collective reputation, some of us nip to Spain for other reasons and carry ourselves with a bit of care and comportment so your assumption there might be a bit too knee-jerk.

Anecdata: I spent a week in a small seaside town in Costa Brava in mid May. Took part in their local annual running festival, explored the countryside, did some more obvious touristy bits around there and in Barcelona. I'm trying to learn the language¹, and managed to use some of it without people spotting my lack of ability and instantly switching to English².

--------

[1] as I might like to live over there in later life and refuse to be the sort of git who arrives and expects everyone to speak English.

[2] in fact a couple of people I encountered, a taxi driver and a lovely woman running a small family run bookshop³, didn't speak a word - and through their patience and my pidgin Castilian we managed to successfully interact.

[2] a rare to find these days, especially in a bit city, I hope the place does the roaring trade it deserves as I hope it'll still be there so I can drop back to get more practice reading material next time I'm nearby.

[petre]

If you attended a running festival, you are clearly not the type to fall off a yacht while being drunk.

We were also there in May a few years ago. An English drunk individual took off his indispensables at the hotel's pool so that the lifeguard, a middle aged woman, had to caution him to put them back on, accompanied by the laughter of his drinking companions. It at Occidental Puerto Banús, so not at a cheap hotel.

[dspillett]

I should have left the second paragraph out, we could trade anecdata until the cows come home. My point is that I think you judging a whole by the standards of a very loud and obvious few.

Our big drinkers are a problem at home as well as aboard. Unfortunately our other stereotype comes into play in that for every loud idiot, there are many of us quietly tutting at them and hoping they'll get bored and bugger off if we don't interact with them… One of the reasons I drink a lot less these days is that I grew tired of apologising for other people's behaviour when someone in or associated with our group had "one too many" and couldn't regulate himself¹ after that, or making excuses to leave early before that happened. In the generation after mine (and the next so far, but many in that cohort are not yet old enough to, so more time is needed to see if the pattern holds) are drinking a lot less, both in the sense of having a healthier attitude to drinking when they do and in many cases simply not taking alcohol at all, in part as a reaction against all this too.

--------

[1] Not all unpleasant drunks are male of course, but in my experience a higher proportion of us that drink much have an unhealthy relationship with it, and this is exacerbated by a lower proportion of women drinking a lot. I'm not sure how other types fit into this, certainly none of the out trans people I know are that sort of problem but this is probably too small a sample to be making generalisations from.

[fragmede]

> would have to be worth $1500/hr which is higher than the take-home (not billable) of senior partners at law firms.

40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, that's only $3 million/yr. If you've been at OpenAI for 10 years, you'll net more than that this year after they IPO.

[rsynnott]

And the prize for the most HN comment goes to...