Economy class airlines - UK style

I flew from Berlin to London this morning on the budget airline "RyanAir". Think Southwest, only take away the humor and add in a steady stream of infomercials. The boarding lacks a bit of the organization of a Southwest flight. Basically, they wait until everyone is off the plane from the flight before, and then they open a gate and everyone runs out onto the tarmac to climb the stairs and board the plane. They're very, very strict about one carry on bag. Literally, just one. Not one and a purse, or one and a man bag. Just one. They mean it. They make you pay 35 Euro if you haven't said you want to check a bag ahead of time, but then are forced to do so. Harsh!

Once seated, I discovered that the seats had no tilt feature. Not kidding. You can't lean back in your chair. I'm surprised they even had cushions. Seriously people. Thank God it was only an 80 minute flight. Even so, my neck hurts right now.

As for the infomercials, I was offered food and drink, smokeless cigarettes, scratch off lottery cards, and much, much more. Announcements about the available items are made by a live person in English. They then proceed to push a button and the Deutsche version is made by a prerecorded audio file. Upon landing, they played some cheesy horse racing tune and announced that "90% of all RyanAir flights land on time". That's good. I'm happy about that. But must we suffer needlessly in the process?