Yesterday I flew to Brussels on The world's greatest airline-Ryanair. And I truly believe this. Ryanair is not a luxury airline-they are known for charging the lowest fares and charging for everything.
When making the reservation-after reserving the fare, you are asked if you want to pick a seat, and then for travel insurance. You can't just check off a box that says no-you have to select your country of residence for purchasing insurance, and under the "d's", a selection exists called "don't insure me". Then you have to go through pages of other sales opportunities like rental cars, airport transfers, before receiving your confirmation #.
When doing the online checkin-where passport #, residency is required-again, you don't just put in your passport # and hit print. Pages of other sales opportunities-like rental cars, airport transfers,etc.
In US airports, discount carriers are usually side by side with other airlines. In Europe, many times there is a special terminal for discount carriers like Ryanair-one that looks more like a warehouse-and no jet bridges either-you have to walk outside and onto the moving stairs that take you to the plane.
One onboard, the plane is basic-no seatback pockets-the safety instructions are pasted onto the seatback, and everything is sold-including
(1) Food and drinks
(2) duty free items
(3) Sightseeing tours in the city
(4) In addition to duty free items, the flight attendents highlight a product-of-the-day, in this case CK cologne/perfume, which they gave a description of and went through the cabin spraying little samples about on interested people.
Awesome stuff! Beats a bad inflight movie anyday!
