The difference though is that Swiss' coverage is only from Switzerland, a very wealthy and well-managed country, to other major business and tourist destinations and can arguably run at a loss since it's a national carrier. Not every country can afford that - the only flights I can get from my small hometown of ~350000 are with budget airlines because the national carrier simply isn't competitive enough to be able to run profitable flights from there. Before they showed up the airport was effectively dysfunctional. Budget airlines have tremendously improved connectivity for less popular and less wealthy of the continent.
Not disagreeing here, not at all. And don't overestimate how well organized Switzerland is.
Our closest airport (Geneva) is much better served by Easyjet than its own Swiss airlines, who have top priority Zurich and then nothing for a looooong time. They are absolutely uncompetitive here, almost no direct flights and you need to fly 200km and change in Zurich (so adding risks and flights take 2-3x longer, sucks with small kids), compared to Easyjet who offers direct flights to tens of destinations on 3 continents for comparable or lower prices.
Not sure when was the last time I flew Swiss, few years ago. Easyjet? 4x this year, once to Africa. But this is about Ryanair, for some reason they positioned themselves as the worst budget airlines and they don't even fight their image. Suffice to say, I've never flown them.
