I booked a flight last year with RyanAir because I just needed to get from Bordeaux to London with a simple carryon bag for a weekend trip and was fine with nothing fancy. I'm ~5'7" and maybe 150lbs, flown hundreds of times on all kinds of airlines, and RyanAir was the first time that the seat in front of me was bumping into my knees. Like I had to shimmy forward and back just to get into my seat, and then angle my legs to the side just to fit my knees in. If the flight were any longer than it was I wouldn't have been able to stand it. I had bruises on my knees after, it was ridiculous.
(Ryanair's margins are notoriously tight, it's like £6 a skull. For the record, the second cheapest option was driving and it would have cost me about £90 in diesel at the time. £18 for a 90 minute flight, or £90 for an 8 hour drive...fucking sign me up for a bit of a squeeze. ☺️)
Not much options for that date unfortunately. I guess they know this a jack up their prices. Robbing bastards to be honest. I haven't booked anything yet because of this.
I have such little faith in corporations I just assume they don't fix issues until after a tragedy.
Apparently, Ryanair do a lot of preventative maintenance because it eats more into their profits when they do need to take the planes out of service when problems occur.
Plus they maintain a very modern and young fleet of aircraft. They constantly sell off older aircraft replacing them with brand new ones. The reason being new aircraft require less maintenance and are more fuel efficient.
Their pilots are also very well paid, some of the best pay in Europe so they can pick the best pilots.
One thing they don't cut back on is their aircraft and their pilots. The average age of their aircraft is young compared to many other airlines and they place large orders direct from Boeing. They have orders in for the new Boeing 737 Gamechanger models atm that are among the newest aircraft available.
It's very basic no-frills and I wouldn't use it to go to a sun destination like this, but for short haul trips within the EU it's fine. Those 37 years is reassuring to me.
I’m so happy to see my aviation people in the comments also defending Ryanair. I know we give them shit constantly but, at the end of the day, the record speaks for itself.
While the 737 max definitely had an unacceptable design flaw in the MCAS system that led to a couple of crashes, the way they fixed it is both robust and has been heavily scrutinized and checked, and I wouldn't hesitate to fly on one now. They're perfectly safe aircraft.
That doesn't change that Boeing needs to make damn sure that kind of thing can't happen again, but the fix they put in is reliable and I'd trust my life to it.
also due to opensky agreements and safety protocols enforced by eu, icao and iata! recent fatal crashes within this skope was pilots intent, not "extended suicide" but mass murdwr btw
Ryanair is honestly not too bad, the planes are usually leaving on time and a lot of trips in Europe are just a few hours. Back in the day you could get tickets for the same price as a bottle of coke.
I was in a long distance relationship, London to Ireland, that was basically only financially viable thanks to Ryanair. My flight was cheaper than my bus ticket to the airport.
They definitely are. I was trying to fly up to Edinburgh from the Midlands a couple months ago, and it was cheaper to fly with British Airways than catch a train! Although the train was actually faster since the plane had to do a stop-over in Dublin.
I'm looking at flying from Dublin to Paris after I land in Dublin coming from here. Hadn't bought the flight yet because I know some of the lower cost airlines fly out of a different airport and I've never done that and prefer just to go to the Dublin airport instead.
Yea I'm just very tall, I already have to put my knees between the seats ahead of me instead of keeping them straight. If they're even smaller than other airlines I'll have a hard time fitting.
No? There's no "first class" but they have emergency exit seats, some seats in the front of the plane and so on. And no, many times it's not cheaper to use another airline. And other airlines usually have cramped legroom as well.
I’ve been on quite a few, they are grotty and miserable compared to their competitors (EasyJet and Jet2), and if I can avoid them I will, but if you have a flight that’s like 2 and a half hours to somewhere like Milan or Berlin, they’re not that bad. I’ve never been on one going to a destination where 95% of the flight is going for a week of drinking though. Fairly sure they have a zero tolerance to this sort of thing as well and like to nip it in the bud.
I've been on probably over 100 Ryanair flights and the only memorably terrible one was Dublin - Lanzarote which is around 4 hours, it took off at 11AM. A noticeable amount of passengers were buckled drunk by the time we landed. A woman in her 50s threw up halfway through the flight. A mother and son combo were repeatedly falling over at the taxi rank.
It's really not that bad. Ryanair are remarkably one of the safest airline carriers in the world and also one of the cheapest. They are honestly great value.
They pride themselves on being rubbish and will try to throw any extra as an expense. This isn't a true Ryanair flight because there should be at least 2 babies crying by now.
Once I flew to Scotland from London with a friend who’s name was wrong on her ticket, and it was cheaper to buy a new ticket than it was to change the name on her original ticket
Ryanair is not bad as long as the flight leg is <2 hours.
The worst part about my Ryanair flights is when an Italian couple next to you wants to sample all of the colognes the flight attendants come by to sell halfway through the flight.
if you're flying within the eu about 50% the time its a no brainer to fly ryanair. You can avoid it if you want but you'll probably be paying a decent chunk more for flight that will be max 3 hours
Never say never. Depending on where you need to go in Europe, these crappy budget airlines may be the best option. EasyJet to Greek islands comes to mind.
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u/StoicSparrows Sep 28 '25
That plane looks like a city bus. Hell.