I've flown allover the place with Ryanair, and found them to be "coldly efficient" in their delivery, and have never had or seen any problems.
Easyjet are a similar operation, but tend to be a little more expensive in my experience. They do seem to have developed a slightly softer image though, which MOL seems to have realised, as per the interview currently posted on the flight global website:
"But, when asked about his mistakes, O'Leary appears to regret his approach to customers. "I don't think I've done a very good job on the whole customer image, the customer proposition of Ryanair. Actually the service is phenomenal in terms of fares and our performance on punctuality, lost bags and cancellations. If you look at easyJet, they've done a better job on their image than I have with Ryanair. EasyJet charges much higher fares, it has a deplorable punctuality record, frequent cancellations and frequent lost bags. Yet in any customer sentiment survey easyJet always ranks higher than Ryanair despite the fact that Ryanair carries about 50% more passengers. So I think in terms of customer perception, we haven't done very well, whereas in the customer decision area - in terms of who's buying the tickets and flying with you - we beat them hands down." O'Leary thinks Ryanair would be a different kind of carrier if it had not taken this route: "I think our fares would be slightly higher now, so the good thing about my failure is that it resulted in much lower air fares for consumers."
I suspect that a change to a new softer image may be on the way perhaps after MOL chooses to move on?
