On budget airlines you almost always only get a backpack included which goes under the seats. They usually bundle the small onboard suitcase option with "Priority boarding", usually because people with suitcases board slower and splitting up those with suitcases and those without speeds up boarding. And if you don't have Priority but come in with a suitcase you will 99% of the time be stopped and forced to pay a fee.
IMHO it isn't a terrible policy per se since it allows for savvy, usually younger, and usually poorer travellers to get even cheaper plane tickets and travel more but I do think there needs to be a cap on the price of "Priority" since during busy times the budget airlines, especially WizzAir in my experience, jack up prices substantially. I had to fly in my suit for a wedding once because the "Priority" charge for both ways was 130€.
Not sillier than charging 2 euros for using an effin' toilet. That's probably unlawful in many places, not sure if they actually implemented it but at least serious PR was happening around it few years back. Imagine if you simply don't have cash on you and your cards ain't working for some reason (or wallet stolen etc).
Luckily for us Ryanair practically ignores our closest airport (Geneva), but due to Swiss air being greedy and corrupty, they prevented Easyjet from having their main airport in Zurich, and Geneva it is. So we get all these nice direct flights to most of Europe, North Africa and Middle east that even Swiss airlines don't cover. Prices are usually fine too, if booked long enough in advance and not during top breaks. Ie recently went to Morocco for some paragliding during easter for like 70 USD. Next best flight would be 4x the cost and 3x the time.
The toilet charge is (and it should be obvious) a marketing ploy — it gets the Ryanair boss interviews in the media, and reminds people that Ryanair is so cheap it's not worth checking the competitors.
I like that they do it this way. The bins always had plenty of space when I took the option, and otherwise you travel with a backpack which fits under the seat in front of you for the lowest ticket price.
The boarding and disembarking procidures are also much faster with Ryanair in part thanks to this policy, the other being air stairs boarding from both ends of the plane.
They offer a cheap 10kg hold luggage option in case the overhead bins have been sold out or you need to take a small suitcase with forbidden items.
Given that the overhead bins are usually highly congested, the capitalist playbook clearly says you should be able to solve this space allocation problem by introducing a cost for the space usage.
Except the overhead bins only got cluttered in the first place because capitalists took something that was usually included, a checked bag, and charged $50 for it, so now passenger planes fly with pretty underfilled cargo areas and overstuffed overhead compartments that make it take 2x as long to board and deboard the plane.
So yeah, inventing a problem where there wasn't one and selling a solution IS actually the capitalist playbook.
FYI, the low cost airlines in the US are actually in a business crisis right now, because their cost per seat mile has doubled and none of them are really making a profit, while the legacy carriers are making reasonable profit. So expect some truly offensive bullshit from "low cost" carriers to offset their bad business decisions.
They doubled their fleet size but now each plane is flying fewer hours per day, and wouldn't you know that's bad for an airline, from an economics perspective.
This might be true for low-cost airlines, but is it for the traditional ones?
I recall times where checked luggage was included in the air fare, but people would still fill up the overhead space, as it was simply more convenient (and quicker) to have your luggage with you, instead of having to wait for your checked luggage to show up 10-40 Minutes after leaving the plane.
Oh the good old days of flying in to Tegel (Berlin), time from the Gate to the Taxi? Approximately 3 Minutes.
Nowadays, it seems everything goes extra, as that allows airlines to list first on any of the travel portals where people buy their flights nowadays.
I'm not sure if I'm shocked to hear this because it breaks my expectations, or because it's just silly.