Ryanair

Last weekend I travelled to Italy for my godson’s christening and had a fabulous time. The baby cooed, sweetly, throughout the ceremony and looked fetching in a white dress. My mother, who had not visited the Continent before, enjoyed a number of new experiences, including mozzarella cheese and sparkling mineral water. But by far the best thing about the trip was the Ryanair flight there and back.

If you’ve had to re-read that last sentence, I don’t blame you. It’s not a common sentiment. You hear, quite often, about Ryanair’s meanness towards its passengers, in the form of arbitrary cancellations and spirit-crushing delays. You hear, quite often, about the airline’s crass adverts, whether it’s using Carla Bruni’s picture without permission or depicting young women in school uniforms above the headline: “The hottest back-to-school fares.”

And you hear all too often from Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, a man whose predilection for naff publicity stunts makes advertisements starring Howard from the Halifax seem poised and dignified. But rarely do you hear anybody heaping praise on the airline.

And, actually, I’m not going to defy convention. My journey was in itself miserable. Not notably so, but then the airline would have to run you over with a Boeing 737-800 and leave you, half-dead, in baggage reclaim for a month before you could claim to have had a notably bad Ryanair experience.

But, for me, the entire trip, even the peculiar £4 in-flight ham and cheese sandwich that somehow tasted of coleslaw, was redeemed by the fact that it made me realise that Ryanair’s days, and the days of budget air travel in general, are numbered…

Read atTimes Online