Ryanair Boeing 737-800 – Photo: Steven Paduchak

That’s right, people, it happened!  Last weekend, I flew Ryanair with my buddy Dan.  It was a quick weekend getaway from Frankfurt to London.  We’re here in Germany on a semester abroad, and neither of us had been to the United Kingdom.  Before coming over “the pond”, we knew it was on the list of places to visit.

It all started on a Wednesday afternoon.  We booked the trip a few weeks prior, and we were counting down the days.  We all know Ryanair.  They’re known for having the cheapest airfare in the industry; making the airline beloved here in all of Europe.  The Dublin-based air carrier offered us each a forty euro (yes, you read that right) roundtrip from Frankfurt to London.  That’s a huge deal, flying between two major European markets.

I knew after a deal this unbelievable, there’d be some sort of catch.  In the end, there definitely was. Left and right, we were advised we had to pay for everything; printing off boarding passes, seat selection, food, etc… Being cautious of something like this, we came well prepared with food and boarding passes already printed off, so we managed to avoid all the imposed fees.

The day finally came, and we were on our way.  To our surprise, however, the airport we flew out of was FOREVER away.  It was one of the biggest catches we didn’t realize until our journey.  The airline flies into the smaller and medium-sized airports in order to avoid the hefty landing fees imposed by the major international locations. This is completely understandable – we all want to save money whenever we can, right?