Do Europe’s Biggest Budget Airlines Actually Win Their Flyers Back?

The Loyalty Shift: Season 2, Edition 3

Last month, we introduced the Caravelo Loyalty Scorecard. It is our in-house benchmarking methodology that maps how any travel brand engages its travelers against the three pillars of the Relational Anchor: Access, Control, and Convenience. Scored across fifteen sub-dimensions on a simple 0–5 scale, it produces a structured profile of how strong a program’s hold on its travelers is and where its structural vulnerabilities lie.

If you missed the methodology piece, you can find it here.

Then we applied it to the five biggest OTAs. Today, we turn the same tool on the subset of the industry that arguably did the most to break travel loyalty in the first place.

We are starting with Europe’s three largest low-cost carriers by passenger volume: Ryanair, easyJet, and Wizz Air, which together moved more than 360 million passengers in 2025. These three reshaped how a continent prices air travel by stripping the fare to the bone and charging for everything else. Loyalty was never part of that model. Loyalty was never part of that model. For years, the lowest fare did the work a loyalty program otherwise would, so none of them built one. Only now, as different initiatives spread across the segment, are they testing whether they can persuade the most price-driven travelers in Europe to stay.

So, do Europe’s budget giants reward flyers who keep coming back? One built the bet, one let it lapse, and one walked away. But only one is close to getting it right.

The three programs we assessed

We assessed the currently active, consumer-facing engagement mechanics each carrier runs today, not the ones announced (or shelved).

• Wizz Air runs the densest membership stack in the category, grouped into WIZZ Memberships: the WIZZ Discount Club (a free Light tier plus paid Standard and Premium), WIZZ MultiPass, and WIZZ All You Can Fly. 
• easyJet runs easyJet Plus, a paid annual membership. Its invite-only Flight Club was suspended last year, and a full tiered program is announced for early 2027. Neither is scored.
• Ryanair has no loyalty program. It has myRyanair, an account. Its paid Prime subscription closed to new members in November 2025, and we return to it below as context rather than a scored program.

None of the three operates a traditional points-based frequent-flyer program, and none belongs to an airline alliance. The FFP has been the industry’s defining loyalty tool for more than four decades, so its absence here isn’t a footnote; it’s one of the findings.

The European LCC Scorecard: Three Carriers, Three Very Different Bets

Before we go carrier by carrier, here is how all three look side by side.

The three triangles look nothing alike.

• Wizz leans toward Access more than anyone else in this group, the only carrier here that does. It’s built on memberships that gate member-only inventory.
• easyJet is strong on Convenience, tied with Wizz on Control, and nearly empty on Access.
• Ryanair barely lifts off the floor on two of the three pillars, backed only by a competent booking platform.

One immediate insight: not one of the three forms a balanced triangle. And the only carrier here with real Access is the only one building the moat the category will need. That is the story of LCC engagement in 2026.

Let’s go through each one.

Wizz Air’s stack: The Membership Pioneer

Wizz Air has placed the most aggressive bet in European low-cost aviation. Rather than a single membership, it runs a layered set of paid products, each aimed at a different kind of flyer: the occasional leisure traveler, the monthly commuter, the high-frequency spontaneous flyer. It is the only carrier in this group treating engagement as a portfolio rather than a single product.

On Access, the bet pays off, and this is where Wizz separates from the other two.

• The Discount Club offers member-only fares (roughly €10 off any fare at or above €29.99), and both MultiPass and All You Can Fly create inventory pools a public booker cannot reach at all. Two parallel structures of gated inventory push Exclusive Inventory to a 4 out of 5, the strongest single Access score in this group.
• The same segmentation drives Volume and Frequency Enablement to a 4 out of 5: a free Light tier to enter the ecosystem, a monthly pass for the commuter, an unlimited pass for the flexible road warrior, each engineered around a different flying pattern.
• And members organize themselves, with two dedicated All You Can Fly Facebook communities, active Telegram groups trading tips and vouchers, and third-party sites tracking seat availability. That is a member-driven identity layer neither rival has, earning a 3 out of 5 on Identity and Community Signal.

The behavioural proof is there: All You Can Fly subscribers have flown an average of nine times a year since the product launched. That is the bet, working as designed, with members actively organizing their travel around the subscription.

On Control, the picture is mixed, but the mechanics are real. MultiPass locks a fixed monthly fare for a full year, a price-predictability mechanic that scores 3 out of 5 on Price Predictability, and across the stack, the flexibility holds up too: MultiPass carries a 14-day withdrawal window, and WDC members get pro-rata refunds on changes, earning 3 out of 5 on Flexibility and Cancellation. Two cells hold the pillar back:

• Real-time Flexibility lands at 2 out of 5, by design rather than failure: All You Can Fly draws on distressed, unsold inventory, so availability in the public flow does not extend to members.
• Spain’s consumer authorities have opened proceedings over carry-on charges across several airlines, including Wizz, and the Discount Club restructure raised member fees, pulling Pricing Clarity to 2 out of 5.

On Convenience, the subscription ecosystem is forming (MultiPass plan bundles, the tier ladder, an eSIM travel pass), enough for a 3 out of 5 on Cross-journey Integration. The app is solid but trails easyJet: it rates 4.8 on Google Play across 716,000 reviews, held back by login and check-in complaints, so Digital User Experience scores 3 out of 5. Proactive Communication also reaches 3 out of 5, on a loyalty layer that is easy to miss: birthday offers, member price-drop alerts, and renewal reminders.

The limitation is narrow. Wizz built the most ambitious engagement architecture in the category, and the app and comms hold up. What caps the ceiling is pricing clarity and the real-time availability baked into distressed inventory. The bet is real, and the execution mostly matches it.

Wizz Air’s triangle leans toward Access more than any carrier in this group, the only shape here that does. That makes it the Membership Pioneer of European low-cost flying, the one carrier building the moat the category will actually need (Anchor 2.9).

easyJet Plus: Waiting for 2027

easyJet Plus is the oldest paid membership in this group, launched in 2008 and now priced at £249 a year. For more than a decade it set the standard for how a low-cost carrier could sell a richer experience. The standard has not moved much since, and easyJet has effectively conceded as much: at its H1 2026 results it disclosed that 71% of bookings already come from returning customers, and confirmed a full loyalty program for 2027. The customer base is loyal. The mechanic to deepen that loyalty has not been built yet.

On Access, easyJet Plus is a perks bundle rather than a gated relationship.

• There are no member-only fares. The closest thing to exclusivity is fee-free access to seat classes anyone can buy, holding Exclusive Inventory to 2 out of 5.
• Speedy boarding and fast-track security at dozens of airports are real operational priorities, but there is no members-first booking window, so Priority and Early Access also land at 2 out of 5.

Nothing here locks a non-member out of anything structurally.

On Control, easyJet does better than its rivals in the everyday mechanics.

• The Price Promise refunds the difference if a booked fare drops, worth 3 out of 5 on Price Predictability (though only as an easyJet credit voucher, claimed by phone and expiring in six months).
• The Plus bundle (free seat selection, a guaranteed large cabin bag, dedicated bag drop) is the clearest, most transparent ancillary package in the category, earning 3 out of 5 on Ancillary Control and Upgrades.
• An Italian antitrust probe opened in May 2026 over how baggage fees are displayed holds Pricing Clarity to 2 out of 5, in line with every LCC in this group.

On Convenience, this is easyJet’s strongest ground, and its app is the reason. It is the best-rated of the three, check-in is clean, and easyJet’s customer satisfaction sits at a ten-year high, earning 4 out of 5 on Digital User Experience, the only score above 3 any carrier reaches outside Wizz’s Access. Booking Simplicity and Proactive Communication are a clean 3 out of 5. easyJet holidays is a genuine second product on the same account rather than an affiliate link, which also scores 3 out of 5 on Cross-journey Integration.

The limitation is that Plus has aged into a comfort bundle. It smooths the trip you were already taking. It does not build a relationship that makes you take more. That 71% returning-customer base is unactivated relational potential: a loyal audience the airline has no mechanism to deepen. easyJet appears to know it. The 2027 program is set to add points earned across flights, direct bookings, and holidays, which is an open admission that the current state is not enough.

easyJet’s triangle tilts toward Convenience and runs hollow on Access. That is the textbook Well-Built Commodity, polished for today and exposed for tomorrow. A brand visibly waiting for 2027 to become something more (Anchor 2.5).

Ryanair’s myRyanair: The Anti-Loyalty Carrier

Ryanair is Europe’s largest airline and its most deliberate loyalty refusenik. The chief executive’s view is on the record: if you want loyalty, get a dog. The live offering reflects exactly that. myRyanair is an account that stores your passport, your travelers, and your payment details. It is not a loyalty program, and Ryanair does not pretend otherwise.

On Access, there is almost nothing to score. Members book the same fares as anonymous visitors, with no member-only inventory, no priority windows, and no scarcity protection of any kind, scoring 1 out of 5 on Exclusive Inventory, Priority and Early Access, and Volume Enablement, and 0 out of 5 on Guaranteed Availability. The brand is one of the most recognized in Europe, but recognition is not membership. The account confers no belonging, so Identity and Community Signal reaches just 1 out of 5.

On Control, Ryanair sits at the category floor.

• Pricing is dynamic, with no lock-in and no fare freeze.
• Change fees are steep (€45 online, €60 at the desk), and the ancillary stack is the most aggressively monetized in the segment, though members and non-members pay alike.
• The £55 airport check-in fee, charged to anyone who fails to check in online more than two hours before departure, captures the whole philosophy in a single line item.
• Italy’s competition authority fined Ryanair €255 million in December 2025 over its conduct.

All of this lands as a flat 2 out of 5 across every Control sub-dimension.

On Convenience, Ryanair scores its highest pillar through default rather than design. The high-volume booking flow works once you know it, myRyanair speeds repeat bookings, and operational communications are reliable, earning 3 out of 5 on Booking Simplicity, Remembered Preferences, and Proactive Communication despite a cluttered, ad-heavy interface. The app is the weakest of the three, though: an official 3.48 out of 5 on Google Play with recurring check-in and double-charge friction, holding Digital User Experience to 2 out of 5. None of it is a loyalty mechanic; it is the operational baseline of a modern airline. Cross-journey Integration stays at 2 out of 5, since Rooms and car hire are affiliate bolt-ons rather than integrated products.

The defining event is the one no longer on the board. Ryanair launched Prime in March 2025 (a £79-a-year bundle of reserved seats, insurance, and monthly member-only sales) and closed it to new members eight months later, after it generated €4.4 million in fees against more than €6 million in discounts. The headline reads as proof that subscriptions do not work for low-cost carriers. The real lesson is narrower: Prime sold discounts to the most discount-driven flyers in Europe, so its members did exactly what that audience always does: maximised the deal and built no relationship. It was a discount engine with a subscription badge, not a loyalty product.

The counterfactual confirms it. Even if Prime had survived, its member sales would have lifted Exclusive Inventory and Priority and Early Access from 1 to 2, and its reserved seats would have lifted Ancillary Control from 2 to 3, taking the Anchor from 1.7 to roughly 1.9, still last, still below easyJet and Wizz. Prime moved only the transactional dimensions and left every relational one untouched: Volume Enablement, Identity, Price Predictability, and the whole Convenience pillar. That is a verdict on the product’s design, not on whether airline subscriptions work. Europe has decade-old low-cost memberships that thrive on exactly the relationship Prime never tried to build.

Ryanair’s triangle is the lowest in this assessment, held off the floor only by a competent booking platform. More to the point, it is the only carrier of the three that examined the loyalty model, tried it, and publicly walked away. That is what makes it the Anti-Loyalty Carrier: not the absence of a program, but the deliberate choice to remain without one (Anchor 1.7).

What the LCC Diagnostic Tells Us

The shared pattern across all three carriers is consistent. Convenience is broadly handled. Control is uneven and capped by an aggressive fee culture now drawing regulators across Europe. But Access, the only pillar that creates genuine relational gravity and the only one AI cannot replicate, is nearly absent. It exists in real form at just one carrier, and that carrier is the only one with a moat worth defending. The category that disrupted European pricing has been built for the transaction in front of it, not the relationship behind it.

Next, the scorecard crosses the Bosphorus. We turn the same tool on Turkey’s increasingly crowded low-cost and leisure market: Pegasus, AJet, SunExpress, and Corendon. Four carriers chasing the same travelers with very different loyalty instincts.

Which of them is building a relationship, and which is just selling a seat? The answer is not the one you would expect.

And in the interest of transparency: across this series, some of the brands we score will be Caravelo clients and others will not. The framework is applied in the same way to both.