We are a family of four (from the US) that will be flying from Santander, Spain to Rome this summer. Would you all recommend flying Ryanair and saving almost $1000 over Iberia. I am not sure they are reliable enough. Any thoughts?

Ryanair has reached about 30 million passengers, and will probably surpass Iberia in 2007... If by reliable you mean safe, then yes, they are.

I flew Ryanair at least 30 times. I only had a problem once, when my flight was cancelled due to snow and I couldn't fly for 2 days. On the other hand a similar thing happened to me with Iberia, so...

I'd save the 1000 Euros.

Are you kidding? You'd consider spending $1000 to fly Iberia? That would be crazy. RyanAir has some rules that can be a pain, but to save a thousand dollars I'll bet most people can put up with them. Really, you just need to watch their website to make sure you comply with their luggage rules, and get to the airport on time (which you'd need to do with Iberia anyway). I believe in Rome they use a different airport than the main one (FCO) but just figure out how to get to the city center. People here can help you with that if the guidebooks can't. And if you travel heavy (not a good idea in my opinion anyway) you need to figure it will cost you a few extra dollars over the base price. But I'll bet no where near a thousand. Ryan Air is perfectly reliable in terms of safety and getting you there.

Thank you for your response. It just seemed too cheap to be real. It is reassuring to hear from someone that has actually flown with them and had a good experience.

I've flown with Ryanair several times and everything was OK, almost no difference with other carriers here in Europe (they charge for everything extra..but many of the others also do for intraeuropean travel). Just read their luggage policy.

be sure to check the iberia spain site before .. as people have posted that the fares on the english site are sometimes much more.