Just flown around Europe with Ryanair doing about 15 flights. They were superb. All flights bar one were on time or early, the seat pitch is the same as any economy airline and the staff were professional throughout. The one flight that was late was only so by 30 minutes.
My nearest airport is Liverpool and if I only had BA and the likes as my choice of airline then I would always have to do a 70-mile round trip to Manchester every time I wanted to fly. In the North-West now. the largest carrier in terms of passengers carried is easyJet followed by Ryanair. BA has all but given up at Manchester.
I flew into Frankfurt Hahn as part of may tour and find coaches connecting with the Ryanair flights to take passengers not just to Frankfurt but also Koblenz, Luxembourg, Mainz, Mannheim, Saarbrucken, Trier, Wisebaden and Worms.
Of Ryanair's 16 hubs/bases only Frankfurt, Gerona and Stockholm are quite a bit away from the main cities they claim to serve. Charleroi is as close to Brussels as Stansted is to London and serves a large connurbation south of Brussels, Bergamo is actually closer to Milan than Malpensa and Prestwick has a superb rail link to Ayr and Glasgow.
I think easyJet and Ryanair are superb, but then again I think BA is a fine airline and I fly with them a lot. It is horses for courses.