Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Not really in Europe, except Ryanair which as sort of established itself as the budget SWA over there. Many of the rest are falling like flies (their legacies aren't all doing so great either).
Other than airplane type, how do you compare these 2 companies? Ryanair literally has you pay for everything while southwest still has 2 checked bags for free. Bad analogies. Plenty of room to run for the ULCC’s in this country. The only problem i see is stage lengths- ULCC’s kill it when they can turn many segments in a day (more opportunities for them to sell bags, seat assignments, Cokes etc- you get the idea). But since this country is kinda on the bigger side, ULCC’s need the stage lengths to come down to have more opportunities to sell to their bases.
Speaking to your second point- yes some of the smaller ULCC’s in euroland aren’t doing so hot. But the larger ones are killllllling it. 500 million in profit? Some of the dumber ideas- crossing oceans and relying on POS with no network to fill 1 flight a day is dumb. But if Ryanair, Wizz or EasyJet decided to harness that network they run and send 5 XLR’s to say NYC, ORD, MIA, PHL and BOS a day, ohhh lord would the big 3 have a problem. Same can be said for F9/NK. Give it about 5 years and some economic heartburn, I think the legacy’s will start to hurt.