See also: Ryanair v easyJet Main Page
I selected ten key destinations in Spain - Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Ibiza, Madrid, Malaga, Mallorca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia - and thirteen important cities in Europe - Birmingham (BIR), Edinburgh (EDB), Manchester (MAN) and Liverpool (LIV), and London (LON) in the UK, Berlin (BER) and Frankfurt (FRA) in Germany, Dublin (DUB) in Ireland, Copenhagen (COP) in Denmark, Paris (PAR) in France, Prague (PRA) in the Czech Republic, Milan (MIL) and Rome (ROM) in Italy and Stockholm (STO) in Sweden.
In the graph at the bottom of the page, I have given an 'R' for any route covered by Ryanair, an 'E' for easyJet's routes and an 'O' for routes offered by the Oneworld alliance, the group that British Airways belongs to.
But what of Ryanair's infamous policy of giving regional airports in the middle of nowhere the name of a nearby (or not so nearby) major city? In these cases, I've put the R in brackets to indicate that Ryanair says it flies to this destination, but in reality the airline flies somewhere nearby.
Airports that are not in the city Ryanair claims include Girona and Reus in Spain, Paris in France, Frankfurt in Germany, and Rome in Italy. (There are more, but none that appear on this page).
The Result!
Ryanair directly covers 40 of the routes mentioned above. In a further 33 routes Ryanair flies somewhere else and says it flies to the major city.easyJet directly covers 37 routes. It always flies to the major city. Oneworld group covers 31 routes and also always to the major city.
Which is Best? Ryanair, easyJet or British Airways (Oneworld)
Ryanair would claim it covers double the routes easyJet does. In reality, it covers only a few more direct destinations than easyJet. In nearly half of the routes on this page, Ryanair passengers are unfortunately unable to trust Ryanair's word when it says where it flies, forcing them to do extra research before booking.The Moral to This Story
It is nearly twice as likely that Ryanair will fly to somewhere near your chosen destination, but it nearly half of all cases you will need to allow extra time to travel to the airport and may need to make special arrangements to get to the airport. If you don't want to do this extra research, book with easyJet or Oneworld (or, indeed, pretty much any other airline) as they almost always fly to exactly where they say they do.| BER | BIR | COP | DUB | EDB | FRA | LON | MAN/LIV | MIL | PAR | PRA | ROM | STO | |
| Alicante | R | (R) | R | RE | (R) | RE | RE | (R) | (R)O | R | |||
| Barcelona | EO | (R) | R | R | (R) | REO | (R)E | (R)EO | (R)EO | O | (R)O | (R) | |
| Bilbao | EO | E | O | E | |||||||||
| Ibiza | R | R | (R) | REO | RE | (R)E | E | (R)E | R | ||||
| Madrid | EO | R | O | RO | E | (R)O | REO | REO | (R)EO | (R)EO | O | (R)EO | RO |
| Malaga | RE | (R) | R | R | (R) | REO | RE | (R)E | (R)EO | O | R | ||
| Mallorca | E | R | R | E | (R) | REO | RE | (R)E | E | E | R | ||
| Santiago | R | (R) | R | (R) | O | ||||||||
| Seville | R | REO | R | (R) | (R)O | (R) | R | ||||||
| Valencia | R | R | (R) | RE | R | (R) | (R)O | (R)O |
