low-cost carried

I must be one of the best customers of so-called "low-cost carriers", i.e. cheapo airlines. You know - the kind where you bring your own sandwiches or buy overpriced, tasteless ones on board. After trips to Paris (with FlyNiki/Air Berlin) and Rome (Skyeurope flight from Bratislava) earlier this year, I've now booked a Ryanair-flight to London (visiting l'Italiana) for the May 1 bank holiday weekend. They also fly from Bratislava and I'll get to experience yet another shuttle bus (Terravision) service from and to Vienna. Mind you, last year I flew to Paris on Air France and to London with Austrian Airlines and wasn't given any food on board either, so not only is the service not better on (short flights with) "traditional" airlines, it's actually worse when you compare it with Air Berlin of FlyNiki where you get free sandwiches and soft drinks and glossy (!) mags.

This is my - very personal and hence subjective - "ranking" of the low-cost carriers I've flown with so far:

1. Air Berlin: Proverbial German efficiency has a name! Friendly and efficient staff, departures on time, new(-looking) fleet, comfortable seats, free sandwiches and glossy mags (see above).

2. FlyNiki: Similar to Air Berlin, only with more Austrians among cabin crew. I personally like their corporate design less than AB's. Where Air Berlin has an air of "business", FlyNiki radiates "package tourist"...

3. Skyeurope: Ok service, comfortable planes, convenient shuttle-bus from/to Vienna. Not so good: horrible plasticky sandwiches and mumbled rapid-fire Slovakenglish announcements by flight attendants.

4. Germanwings: I've only flown with them once, several years ago and did not really like the way they sort of frowned upon passengers bringing their own food because they wanted to sell their own stuff (obviously). Otherwise, service was good, seating not too cramped and they might even have given out newspapers as well - can't remember. I really like their colour-scheme and the Cologne/Bonn airport where they are based is very modern and conveniently located.

5. Ryanair: Either I've always travelled with them on a bad day but I couldn't help feeling that here, you REALLY get to feel that you are made to suffer a tiny bit for being such a cheapskate: sagging seats under which you find tea-bags from previous flights, grubby on-board magazines, chaos at the boarding gates which isn't helped by mostly Spanish native speakers with poor command of English, really cramped seating. Recently, they've also introduced a bizarre system where you have to specify in advance how much luggage you intend to take with you and pay for it accordingly.

Lunch-break purchases: An excursion to Bobby's with FCN to stock up on salt&vinegar crisps in obscene quantities (me) and novelty cartoon-character Easter eggs (her).