I posted this on the Airline Forum, but the Europe forum has much more activity.

I am flying out of Frankfurt Hahn to Bologna on Ryanair. We are scheduled to arrive in Bologna at 9:20PM and plan to pick up our rental car and drive to our hotel just outside of Bologna. The car rental companies all close at 11PM. If we are delayed and arrive later than 11 PM we are really in a bind! Can we feel pretty confident our flight will not be delayed - it will be in October so no worries about snow.

My first plan was to taxi to a hotel in Bologna then taxi out in the morning, pick up our rental car and drive to our destination. BUT, Bologna has a festival that week and rates are tripled!

Thanks for any input.

Ryanair have a pretty good rep for being on time, usually by overstating the time it takes to fly somewhere. However, they do turn their planes round quickly and unless a delay is beyond their control, you should be OK.

Ryanair (the world's largest international airline) claim to have the world's best punctuality record.

Bologna's a smallish airport: but that punctuality record doesn't extend to delivering luggage. That doesn't affect their ability to take off on time, and is outsourced, so they really don't care. You've no way of predicting whether your flight is in the 1% or so that'll be late (being "the best" doesn't mean they're infallible), whether the baggage vehicle breaks down or whether the car hire person takes ill.

You ALWAYS need a Plan B. In your case, that's probably getting a taxi from the airport. From memory there's an adequately taxi-ed rank even at 2300.

"Bologna's a smallish airport"
It is the third biggest international airport in Italy in terms of number of passengers

Pvoyageuse, that really does surprise me. I would have put it well behind Rome, both main Milan airports (although probably busier than Bergamo) and Venice.

I would also have thought Naples and Pisa must be close.