speedrestriction does tell one side of the story when he says:
"How's about affordable and simple. While possibly not the most popular airline among the pilot fraternity, they have provided a huge number of jobs, they have kick-started quite a number of local economies and have provided air travel to hundreds of thousands of people who couldn't have dreamt of affording air travel 15-20 years ago. "
But I would add cheap and nasty for the pax too. I think the service levels on your average cattle wagon are probably higher. But you get what you pays for I suppose.
Given a choice between joining SouthWest and Ryanair I think know who would have the longer queue. However SouthWest require closer to 2000 hours than 200. So obviously some will take up the muffin diet just to get started.