SMS wrote:

Obviously enough passengers look at the total ticket price and even with
the fees are still finding Ryanair to be a good deal.

But when you buy the ticket, can the airline really show you the total
price ? At that point in time, it doesn't know how you intend to
check-in, so it cannot charge you the appropriate fee.


The real savings for an airline is not when half the passengers don't
need a check-in agent, because you still have so much of the fixed
overhead costs. You have to get _all_ passengers weaned off of expecting
service for things that cost the airline money.

Charging £10 for web check-in isn't exactly encouragement to avoid
checking in at airport.

They could have jacked the base fee by £10, and then charged £30 for
airport check-in. (instead of charging £10 for web check-in and £40 for
airport check in).

If they really want to save costs, why not eliminate check-in
alltogether and just scan the bar codes on tickets as people board ?



OTOH, sometimes I wonder how well the airline itself evaluates the
payback on these fees. The last two flights I took on Continental, the
departures were delayed by about 30 minutes each time because of the
extra time it takes to load the plane when virtually every passenger has
a carry-on rollerboard suitcase.

Many bonehead decisions are designed to please Wall Street Casino
Analysts instead of actually being smart and generating profits.

Legacy carriers tend to have higher costs per passenger-mile, and they
can't seem to lower those to compete against the new guys on the block.
So they try to delay price increases by removing services that used to
be included in the price of the ticket (meals, luggage etc).

This has the side effect of adding value to their premium cabin products
since those still get luggage allowance, meals etc etc.