I fly around Europe for €30-€100 per return flight without a checked bag. Yet Ryanair are one of the most profitable airlines in the world yet charging such cheap prices. Are other airlines just not as efficient as low cost airlines?
In: Economics
You travel with hand luggage only, but most people don’t.
The vast majority of people will pay extra for an extra cabin bag, or even a case for the hold.
Same with seat allocation. We can pay to sit next to each other. It’s only £12! Actually, it’s £12 each, and it’s both ways, so it’s £48 in total.
If you add it all up, the flights probably cost near the same as a non-budget airline.
Plus they have a bazillion flights a day, that are usually close to full, because of the perceived low prices, and simply because other airlines don’t fly those routes.
To add onto what everyone said, there’s a [nice video](https://youtu.be/069y1MpOkQY?si=CWGsuMKgDErc9R75) from Wendover Productions that explains it quite well
Haaaaavvvvvvvvve you been on RyanAir?
I know a lot of people are saying that they make money selling everything as add-ons to the flight, but that’s not how they make their money. They don’t really make money from their flights at all. They make more money as an affiliate site, booking hotels and rental cars. I believe Ryanair tries to be break-even with their flight revenue but everything else booked through their site, they make a percentage.
For the hotel bookings, they don’t really have to recover any expenses, it’s all their profit.
Additionally to a lot of the other answers, Europe is a bit different than the US in that there’s a lot less business air travel, so demand varies much more than in the US throughout the year. Those cheap tickets are probably often in the winter, when demand is lower, and summer flights are often more expensive. It’s also why, while you will see similarly low airfares on Spirit/Frontier/Allegiant/etc. in the US on occasion, for a lot of flights, their prices aren’t significantly lower than fares on United/Delta/AA/etc. (Also, for a lot of the legacy carriers, de-bundling has also resulted in some basic economy fares that may lack add-ons such as seat selection, carryons, and checked baggage.)
1. Low cost airlines have a bunch of extra add-ons: choosing your own seat, carry-ons, checked luggage being above a certain weight, etc.
2. The low cost of the tickets attract lots of customers. Think about hotels. One hotel costs $1000+ per night but a nearby hotel only costs $100 per night. Which hotel are the poorer people more likely to go there?
Simplify the air fleet as much as possible so training costs are kept lower and maintenance is logistically simpler too.
Fly as much as possible, an aircraft that’s not flying still costs money.
Do routes that are proven to bring in the most amount of passengers and revenue.
Do routes where airports are cheaper to rent slots to operate and keep ground time to a minimum.
Cut back on ground crew and equipment wherever possible.
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