OK some facts - in 2005, 90% of Ryanair flights are on time, BA ? only 74%. Number of bags lost 0.5/1000 for Ryanair - for BA ? 17.7/1000

average ticket price

Ryanair - Euro 40.70
Easyjet - Euro 61.70
BA (short haul) - Euro 114

these are all taken from this stockbroker report
http://www.ryanair.com/site/about/invest/docs/analyst/davy_2006-03-29.pdf
pages 5 and 6

so Ryanair (and Easyjet) are cheaper, lose less bags and are more likely to be on time !

cheap airlines, whether you use them or not, are very good for the consumer. Just look at how Air Malta have slashed their prices in response to Ryanair flying to/from Malta !

My experience ? I've used Easyjet, Ryanair and BA many times. I've never paid more than £25 for a single ticket with Easyjet or Ryanair, even when only booking a couple of weeks before. Yes you have to pay for food, but it tends to be alot better than the food you are forced to buy on BA, as its already included in the price.

Yes, if it all goes wrong, BA will look after you alot better, so it comes down to how much you are prepared to pay for this - to me its worth maybe £100, and the chance of it happening ? 10% at most, so its worth, to me, at most a £10 premium to fly BA

if someone else is paying, and its a long flight , sure I fly BA. However, Luton and Stansted are my preferred airports, rather than Heathrow or Gatwick, so Easyjet and Ryanair win on those as well !

I will agree entirely with the comments about BritishJet and would add that they do not own their one plane but lease it from a swiss company called Hello.

Also it is not a low-cost airline it is a travel company. this may not appear to be much of a difference but when it comes down to compensation for delays it plays a major part!

Stockbroker reports are used to promote stocks. If you don't believe that then that's naievety. Statistics can be manipulated a thousand times over.

I think only time will tell. Sure, Ryan Air over the next few months will pull all the stops out to impress. Let's see in 12 months time when the honeymoon is over.

openminded -I have 15 years experience as an analyst, trader and fund manager, managing billions of $. I assure you, I'm not naieve when it comes to brokers reports. Yes they are there to promote stocks, but the info I highlighted is factual. The on time data can be manipulated as to how you define "on time"( eg I presume these stats count up to 15 or 30 mins delay as on time), but the same rules were used with each airline. The average fares difference is factual, coming from the respective companies audited accounts, and are very difficult to fix as they come from two audited figures - total passenger revenue and total number of passengers ! Baggage losses are from the airport authorities.

Its not a matter of Ryanair pulling out all the stops for now. The average prices quoted are across all of Ryanair, not just for the recently added routes, and what impresses people most about low cost carriers are the cheap prices - the evidence of low cost carriers is that low prices remain - after all thats their biggest (if not only) selling point !

As I said, we shall see. I'm convinced that most people who travel with Ryan Air to Malta will start to complain about how they are treated and the inevitable delays, bad schedule times etc.

Also, as a reminder, you have to pay for checked in baggage. This is one of the many hidden costs (including a charge for booking with credit card). If you have overweight baggage, it's very expensive.

By the way, what's happened to the Times of Malta website, looks like the use of that name has expired! Not sure if my PC is playing up but can't access the website at all.

I can't access it either or The Independent on line.

both papers are coming up for me

"I'm convinced that most people who travel with Ryan Air to Malta will start to complain about how they are treated and the inevitable delays, bad schedule times etc. "

open-minded - do you really mean most people ?? more than 50% ???

1. complain about how they are treated - how they are treated when ? The big issue seems to be when a flight is cancelled or severely delayed - yes, they do behave badly compared to BA, but what %age of flights are we talking about - 10% at most ??
2. inevitable delays - see my post above - they have less delays than BA !
3. bad schedule times - yes they aften are bad, but why would anyone complain about that after travelling - you know before you book, so if doesn't suit, don't book it !

have a look at that brokers research - to the question "how would you rate your flight overall?", 96% replied average or above ! - 80% said above average, 4% below average.

Well, based on the number of complaints relative to the number of passengers flown, the figures from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2203519.stm
are as follows:

BA - Passenger volume 40 million, 117 complaints = 1 per 342,000 passengers

Ryan Air - Passenger volume 11 million, 77 complaints = 1 per 143,000

That is nearly 2.5 times more complaints for Ryan Air.

one per 143,000 is hardly most is it - I'm surprised Ryanair don't use it in their publicity "Only 0.0007% of our customers complain"

I still don't see where you get more than 50% will complain from, and this hardly helps your case !

I know this is straying off topic but is there only gozomark who can access The Times and Independant newspapers on-line?

well I still can, but I'm based in Gozo

http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/index.php
http://www.independent.com.mt/

maybe there is a fault on the internet connection leaving Malta - can you open

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/

Thanks Mark,

The only one that does not work is the Malta Times.
It looks as though their domain name has expired here in the UK. Maybe you or someone could let them know?

You're missing the point. Those numbers show the relative comparison. These clearly indicate that Ryan Air attract more than double the number of complaints compared to BA on a per passenger travelled basis.

It's also clear that most people who have a problem with a service don't actually complain to the service provider. In fact the vast majority of people you see moaning about a bad service or delay with no info on a flight won't complain officially to the airline. However, they will tell other people and there's more chance of platforms such as the Times Of Malta being notified.

I'm probably the 1 in 143,000 who would put pen to paper (believe it or not!) if I feel the service delivered is not as advertised. It's unfortunate that many other don't do this. If they did we would have wonderful services across the board but most people moan at the time and then can't be bothered to follow up. They then complain again to themselves when they next use the service and on it goes.

Just some bed time reading on Malta's newest visiting airline, enjoy

http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2005/02/ryanair_complai.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair

http://news.cheapflights.co.uk/flights/2006/08/ryanair_is_most.html

http://forbrukerportalen.no/engelsk_fransk/1044281229.73

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-1481489,00.html

http://www.rollingrains.com/archives/000734.html

http://www.drc-gb.org/newsroom/news_releases/2003/ryanair_flights_-_call_for_com.aspx

still don't agree more than 50% will complain tho !

I'll bet as many cisks as you want that you are wrong

So I see that Easyjet withdrew their offer for flights from Luton to Malta because Ryan Air have decided to fly from there already. What happened to competition? It's obvious these companies can't compete on a level playing field.

That's the reason why Ryan Air or Easyjet don't fly out of Heathrow, because they couldn't offer anything the major airlines don't already be it on price, service or schedules.

If Easyjet don't want to fly from Luton, why don't they start a service from Gatwick? Maybe too much competition from Air Malta and British Airways there?

Come on Ryan Air and Easyjet, provide some nice cheap 20 euro flights from Heathrow! Not possible? Why? There's a massive catchment area there, probably the biggest in the UK, so that can't be the problem.
I thought you had a low cost business model? Why not compete with the other airlines at the same place? That would be real competition not how it's done now with hidden charges for baggage (at staged check in times), wheel chairs, drinks, insurance, quoting fares without tax, bla,bla,bla.

Openminded,

How did you come to pick the name that you use?