Ryanair might have a lot of ‘add ons’ but all in all there are still dirt cheap flights to be had.
Booking procedure I find the Easyjet site better and clearer to use.
Flight experience I also prefer Easyjet, although I mostly go Ryanair because of the distination Reus is better for me.
Dislike the smugness of Ryanair and like the laid back Easyjet.
my two penneth..

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Thanks Heather,

I favour Ryanair just because, in my experience, overall they under promise and over deliver. I think when things go wrong (ie cancellation) then I would rather be with easyJet though. One thing with Ryanair though is there in flight pricing is crazy high. Having booked a cheap flight, I’m quite prepared to pay over the odds but £3 for a cup-a-soup ?!

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One trick with Ryanair and a party of travellers where only some are checking baggage is to book two separate groups of travellers. I.e. book those who are checking luggage in one group, and those with carryons only in another. That way, you won’t have to pay airport checkin for all travellers in your party.

Of course, I think that’s all moot quite soon, as Ryanair seems determined to levy another £10 fee for checking in online…

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Excellent summary and I agree with general findings, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention the TWO clicks that it takes to decline the automatic travel insurance added during the booking process on easyJet. Surely as a frequent traveller you have an annual policy or, like too many others, did you inadvertently purchase this unnecessary add-on and not realise it??

And for today’s additional trivia: Can anyone work out how to purchase the baggage extra on only 1 leg of a easyJet return journey ? I have a holiday property and want to take some stuff out there, but return with carry only. You either have to purchase the baggage extra for both legs, or book two separate tickets – and pay two separate cc fees !

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This all rings so true. I must admit to finding low fares airlines quite trying at the best of times because of the increasingly complicated pricing models. Can they really not make some elements inclusive so consumers can compare prices? I guess not! My favourite travel find is a scheduled airline flight a low-cost rate as I am rubbish at packing lightly and hate the faff of paid for luggage.

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… and I remember well, Rancour Air wanting £600 to fly to Hahn (one way!) when England was playing in the world cup…..

One does have a choice. As Churchill said, “If you have to shoot someone, it costs nothing to be polite”. Easyjet have learnt that lesson and on balance are really rather efficient. So too, are FR – in their way – but their comes a time when you ask yourself “Would I really prefer a fare of 1 Euro and then have to go through a minefield of extras or would I prefer to pay 10 Euros and have a few bits included?”. The thing is, it is only the likes of Squeezyjet and Rancour Air that say we are to have “cheap air travel” – there is certainly no Heaven-given right to cheap air travel – any more than I have a “right” to a cheap Ferrari – and there ar some pretty sound ecological arguments to getting rid of this “cheap air travel” thing.

Cheap air travel causes a lot of (financial) suffering for other air travellers – business travellers get screwed to pay for cheap air travel – and that cost is reflected in what we pay for goods. Travellers on monopoly – or near monopoly routes (eg Madrid London, internal French and Spanish routes and many Lufthansa routes) get screwed as well, to pay for cheap air fares but worst of all, as low cost carriers “cherry pick” many routes, in an effort to cut costs, sometimes others can lose their tenouous connections. There is a much wider social cost which we rearly see or can be bothered to see, as long as I can get to XYZ for relatively small money, I’m all right, Jack.

Not really relevant, perhaps, but thought I would throw it in anyway.

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I’m new to your site and it has a lot to offer to your visitors as it is very informative especially to people who loves to travel. Excellent travel site.

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Murray, Why focus on low cost carriers when saying there are”sound ecological arguments to getting rid of this “cheap air travel” thing “? Business travel passengers, especially First Class travel with lie flat beds, have a much larger carbon footprint than a passenger on a packed RuinAir or Hasslejet flight. Even the purpose of the flights is questionable, as most business including meetings, conferences can be carried out perfectly efficiently on-line.

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I think that most of us are realistic in our expectations with the cheap carriers – if you’re paying under £100 for a European flight, you have to accept some of the downsides with good grace.

@Richard – you’re right about how easy it would be to get caught out by the Easyjet auto-insurance. And as I have the annual travel insurance I double click out of it on auto-pilot now but it could catch out others unawares.

@Murray H I agree that there are knock on economic effects of cheap air travel which are not obviously apparent as well as the obvious environmental ones. I annually fly with Thomas Cook to Zante on their charter flight and as the typical fare is now over £300 in school holidays, I’d dearly love them to have some competition as I’m sure would the oweners of all the hotels on the island with empty beds. AND I had to pay extra for check-in luggage!

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I once had the misfortune of taking a Ryan Air flight. Granted I had a lot of luggage (I was attending a destination wedding and my wife was one of the bridesmaids). Anyway, I ended up paying 450 euros just for my luggage. I would never fly with a carrier that charges for every small thing. If you need wheelchair assistance, you pay for it, if you want to buy a ticket over the phone, you pay for that, if you don’t check in online, you pay extra. Don’t know if EasyJet is the same way.

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John

Ryanair and Easyjet are similar in lots of ways, however it is the small ways they are not that makes the difference. Easyjet still has check-in and something that is strange to Ryanair as is Easyjet’s customer service, not that good, but there is some. Having flown both I would say Easyjet makes it feel like they want you and Ryanair makes it feel like your an inconvenience to the running of there airline.

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Darren, as you know about my recent Ryanair story on my site, I’m not a huge fan! But thanks for the informative comparison. Think consumers just need to know what they’re getting into and make an educated decision – for some, the cost and routing might be worth it.

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I wrote a post on Ryan Air that apparently upset one of their staff members. You can see it on my site (search for Ryan Air once you get there). Anyway I would never fly Ryan Air. John Traveler has it spot on. They charge you for sneezing basically. And the inside of the plane looks like a bloody circus.

Anyway I would never fly this airline even if they gifted me a free ticket. Whats the point? I will end up paying for a whole bunch of other things. I’d rather stick to other local airlines like Iberia, BA, TAP etc even though they are a bit more expensive. At least they treat you with respect.

Great website. Keep it up.

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I’ll try to avoid both. On Ryanair flights I don’t like this feeling like beeing at a fair. If the price is ok I’ll book Aerlingus or AirBerlin. At AirBerlin you get a cookie or sandwich and the price is nearly the same..

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Let me tell you my expiriance with Ryanair: my wife took me to Rome for my birthday and we had a great time: on our last night i set my phone alarm to wake us up; on waking up i realised that my phone was missing. we had ben robbed they took the lot cards, passaports, money, keys (well you get the idea) the hotel paid for the taxi to the airport. This guy was like a F1 Racing driver total nutter.
But hay ho he got us there with time to spare. We went to the Airport Police and told them our story; they said “Go back to rome and go to British Embassy” We tried to tell them we had no money and they did not care. my wife at this time was crying. A Ryanair stewardess saw my wife and came over, my wife explained what happened, she told her to wait. She then returned and told the police that they would takre responsability of us, they took us trough custums and onto the plane. the gave us food and drink and the captain let us use his mobile phone….now that is what i call service, for two tickets that cost £30 each return….So i say ryanair offer a great no frills service.

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HELP printed outbound boarding pass with Ryan Air but now the site wont let me print inbound, can anyone help?

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I am a frequent user of both Ryanair and Easyjet, uness there is a significant difference in price or flight times I do prefer the easyjet experience. As a thankyou to the airline for a good value seat I always book the car park through the site also. However on my latest experience the processed booking does not relate to the quoted price. Easyjet are not interested but give me an expensive number to call. I decided it s not worth persuing for under £5 but wonder if they are doing this also to everyone else?

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Ryanair is better than Easyjet in every way. People say Ryanair have hidden charges, well they certainly do not. When you select the flight you would like to fly on it gives you all the prices in the info box, fare for all passengers, the online check-in price for all passengers and the taxes and fees and has the total price at the bottom with these added up. It does this for both inbound and outbound flights. When you go to the next page it adds up the prices again and the total price for both the outbound and inbound flights, to give you a total price, below that in red it says “Excluding handling fee (if applicable)”. How the hell do they have hidden charges, well, they don’t, it’s people just being idiots who cannot be bothered to read the information, it isn’t just there for decoration, it’s there for a reason! The Ryanair planes are newer and more tidy and also the cabin crew are not annoying, like Easyjets and and the seats on Ryanair planes are leather and so much more comfortable, you can’t adjust the seats on Ryanair but they are already a little laid back, also it’s horrible when the person infront lays there seat all the way back. The food may be a little more expensive than Easyjet’s though it’s much better quality and there is more food and drinks to choose from on Ryanair. Ryanair are more on time. So in my opinion, Ryanair is better than Easyjet, it’s a cheaper and more friendly airline.

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