I was in Europe a few months back and used RyanAir and the total for my flight from London to Venice was .79 Euro each way. The total purchase came out to about 35 Euro after taxes. But still 0.79 euro?? That's ridiculously cheap. A comparable flight in distance in the US would be Los Angeles, CA to Dallas, TX and that would cost anywhere from a low of $200 up to $600 roundtrip. Southwest Airlines' Ding feature has some cheap fares but nowhere near $40/roundtrip for anything. Even a SF to LA flight, which is one of the cheapest, shortest and most frequent flights, runs $70 at the very cheapest. Help me out here. How is RyanAir so cheap? What is wrong with the US Airline industry? Imagine flying from LA to NYC for under $50 roundtrip. This is the way flying should be.
RyanAir is so cheap for a number of reasons. Primarily, they are trying to stimulate demand by making air travel dirt cheap; they would rather sell tickets at a loss and have every plane full, than have empty seats. They've stated a bunch of times that they want to put the bigger/traditional airlines out of business (although they did say it in an amusing way). They fly in/out of a lot of "secondary" airports, the smaller airports that cost less for an airline to rent space in. One of the biggest ways they keep costs down is by subcontracting a lot of the labor— baggage handling, cleaning crews, etc, all those tasks are contracted out to a third party. In the US and also with the big/traditional European airlines, these jobs are done by airline employees who are almost always union members. Employees get higher hourly rates and more expensive benefits than subcontractors and that's where a lot of the savings comes from. Plus the majority of their flights are short hops of an hour or so, which means the same plane can be used for 12 or more flights in a single day. If that plane is full (or close to it) for every flight, they will make as much money (or more) as an airline selling more expensive tickets but fewer of them. Compare their routes to Aer Lingus or Virgin and you'll see how many of their flights are short hops.
On a less positive note, RyanAir is now under investigation by several different countries for running dishonest advertizing campaigns and for hitting customers with a lot of hidden fees. There are allegations that they consistently charge customers 10-20% more in fees than what the fees actually are. This is for things like airport landing fees and taxes. There are also allegations that they've overcharged for wheelchair rental, excess baggage fees, etc.
Finally, people in the US just don't travel as much as our European counterparts. Folks who grow up in Europe are used to taking the train or the bus to travel all over the country and all over their neighboring countries, even just for an overnight or a short weekend. In the US, we are addicted to our cars and our long work weeks. We don't get out of town every weekend but many Europeans do. A US-based airline with the same business model would have a very hard time running that many flights and keeping them all full, especially with so many short hauls. Rock bottom prices like that would definitely get more people out and flying but not the levels needed to make a profit.
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