well said Amelia
Eastern Wiseguy, alas i dont have the landing fee figures, i imagine thats a closely guarded secret with Stephen Ambrose and his gang. I can only surmise about such things.
If you need figures i can tell you that on the Stansted route on many days the passengers figures are without fail in the 150+ per flight, with the morning service often being fully or even overbooked. Yesterday (bearing in mind it was a sunday) had roughly 3800 people booked to fly in and out of BHD
Its also worth note that in the top 20 UK airports, BHD has had the greatest increase on passenger figures, a lot of this is down to Ryanair, and Easyjet i guess
Ryanair make money from credit card charges, bags, excess, charging for bags at the gate, airport check ins, booking changes, priority boarding at the airport, which adds up to a surprising amount and this is before the passenger even gets onboard.
Its also worth pointing out that with Ryanair being a point to point airline, the large number of passengers/families who fly to the likes of Stansted have onward connections, so baggage and any other charges get doubled.
O'Leary may be considered many things, but he didnt turn a failing airline into the biggest low cost airline in Europe by opening a base here or there and just hoping some profit comes in.
As Amelia has said if the routes were not making money he would reduce the daily services, but if you fly with Ryanair anyday you'll find there will usually be 2 Stansted flights in close succession each afternoon, and sometimes the same for Liverpool