Rumours of Ryanair's demise are exaggerated

So, the CEO of Germanwings, Thomas Winkelmann, believes that Ryanair will ultimately fail as it does not attract the corporate market (interviewed in Travelmole on 28 October).

I am sorry, Herr Winkelmann, you are wrong! If Ryanair ever fails, it will either be due to an accident or a total collapse of customer service. The Germanwings chief implies that failure to attract the corporate market is the Achilles Heel of the strategy. Frankly, it the the corporate market that has been shaky in the crisis.

Herr Winkelmann states, "taxpayers in destinations should not have to bear the brunt of Ryanair's business model." OK, I can see the point that taxpayers do apparently foot the bill for subsidies allegedly paid to Ryanair at certain destinations, but this ignores the point that Ryanair's presence has had an enormous positive impact on local economies throughout Europe.

Let's consider this: Germanwings is owned by Lufthansa, and I seem to recall that Juergen Weber, a former CEO of the German national carrier, was convinced that travellers prefer to pay extra for better service. Well, that proved to be completely wrong too. It may be the case that Ryanair is the airline that everyone likes to hate, but their CEO, Michael O'Leary, hit the spot when he declared that Europeans are prepared to crawl naked over broken glass for cheap fares.

Will that be Sardine Class, Sir?

We’ve seen a lot of nonsense about how far the low-cost airlines will go in extracting money from the pockets of their customers. I think everyone’s fed up with Ryanair’s proposal that people should pay to use the toilets on board an aircraft. Let’s admit it; Michael O’Leary has a great sense of humour. But I am still amazed at how the low-cost airlines are still talking about standing passengers. Unsurprisingly, Ryanair is on the bandwagon but, more surprisingly, Spring Airlines of China is seriously proposing so-called half-standing seats, which would take the capacity of an A320 from 180 to a whopping 258. Spring is now urging low-cost airlines to club together and address the industrialisation challenges.

Now, it’s good to dream, but has anyone stopped to think about emergency evacuation constraints? Or the impact of the increased payload on the design weights? And where do you put the extra baggage anyway? But wait! Sardine seating is perfect for the military, so maybe the designers will equip passengers with parachutes too, so then at least we can forget about the 16g load limit.

We are already being tortured by oppressive security checks, huge congestion at overcrowded airports, problems with delayed and lost baggage. No-one can convince me that 'standing room only' aircraft is progress.