Good:

- Fare was $0.02 + tax; about $500 cheaper than comparable flights on major carriers.

- Technically perfect: fast check-in, flight departed and arrived on time, bag arrived quickly at the other end

- For the last 7 days, Ryanair has been running 91% on-time arrivals, 98% within 1 hour. In Europe in January.

- This is the only direct flight from London to Tampere

So-So:

- Like Southwest, no assigned seating

- All drinks charged for, including tea/coffee/sodas

- Plane was quite full

- Seats were at absolute minimum front-to-back spacing. They even removed the seat-back pockets to fit them closer together. Little possibility to do work on the plane.

- Seats did not recline (probably because of minimum spacing...)

- Plane departed from farthest gate from passport control in London (15 minute walk)

- No jetway; walk across tarmac in the rain (London) / snow (Tampere) to get from gate to plane

- Only one carryon allowed; further baggage must be checked at a cost of $10 (per bag)

- Arrival terminal at Tampere was custom-built for Ryanair at absolute minimum cost; no facilities whatsoever (other than toilets). Could not obtain or change money, but fortunately the taxi took a credit card.

- Baggage claim "carousel" is not circular; if you are not through passport control when your bag arrives, it rolls off the end of the conveyor belt onto a big pile on the floor. I am not making this up.

Bad: Nothing to speak of.

Please let me upgrade my review of the Ryanair terminal (Terminal 2) at Tampere, now that I have left.

There is a small shop and cafe in the departure area; those are the only facilities I could see. No duty-free. No bank or ATM. No duty-free. No other facilities I could find.

I am told that Terminal 1 that all other airlines fly to is much nicer.

The Ryanair terminal at Tampere is pretty much like a bus station rather than an airport.

Ryanair terminal is quite horrible experience, its more like a cowshed than airport to be honest. There is a bus connection to Tampere train station where you can hop into a night train up north. In the Tampere region there are only small ski hills (300m in length) so check the train connections from www.vr.fi

Other than that Tampere is a nice place to enjoy city life in nature's surroundings, especially in the summer.

Yeah and it was a bad experience.

Tampere was great. But not the airport. My friend's luggage (and another traveller's) didn't come off the plane from STN, but two other passanger's who weren't on our flight did. OK, so accidents happen. But you expect them to be resolved and people to do something about it. Sadly that was not the case at Tampere, where they just (literally) shrugged their shoulders and couldn't care less. Ryanair's call centre in Dublin were no better. They just gave us a website where you can track your luggage - but it never changed so my friend thought it had gone for good. We spent a fortune trying to call the Airport to see what was happening with the luggage and to see if it was on its was to our Hotel. Unless you spoke Finnish you couldn't get past the automated message machine, and it seemed (from the very helpful Hotel staff) that no one was at the airport through much of the day anyway. After a day in Tampere we moved on to Helsinki, and eventually on to Estonia and Latvia. We never got as much as a courtesy call from Tampere Airport, or Ryanair. 10 days later on arrival in Stansted from Riga we actually got to speak to someone about it. Apparently the luggage had gone to Carcasonne in France, and returned to Stansted immediately, was then put on the second flight of the same day to Tampere. All fine you woudl think... Unfortunately no one at Tampere Airport did their duty and forwarded it to our Hotel! or even called my friend to say 'its here'. After a week sat at Tampere Airport they put it on a plane back to Stansted. My friend had to fly straight on to Milan for a further week and still did not have his luggage. On his return he collected his luggage, just as he had packed it two weeks previously. To this day (we went in October 2006), in spite of three letters to Tampere Airport, and a further five to Ryanair, he still has not received any apology. Ryanair just issue templates that don't really make any sense based on the actual complaint - no one takes any ownership. Worst still - Tampere Airport don't reply at all! The website has never been updated once - his luggage is still on there as missing!!! So, if you can, take hand luggage!

Appart from that, everything was great :)

Let's face it: Ryanair terminal in Tampere is just awful. So much so, that even if the flights from UK to Finland (where I visit at least twice a year) were free, I would not fly there.

I could somehow handle the arrival part, having to be very quick with your luggage, and being herded like cattle through the passport control. But to actually having to depart from there, check in, wait for my flight...no way! I've done it twice - after the first time, I thought that maybe things could get better. But I will not be doing it again.

There is a small shop and a café, the staff do not know the meaning of the word "service". The atmosphere is chilling. Nobody wants to experience the Rayanair Tampere Terminal.

Tampere airport su**...we went to Riga and same time was flight to Milan. It was so horrible small terminal.