Ryanair

Ryanair DAC

is an Irish ultra low-cost carrier founded in 1984. It is headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Ireland and has its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted airports. It forms the largest part of the Ryanair Holdings family of airlines and has Ryanair UK, Buzz, Lauda Europe, and Malta Air as sister airlines. It is Ireland's biggest airline and in 2016 became Europe's largest budget airline by scheduled passengers flown, carrying more international passengers than any other airline.

Ryanair Group operates more than 400 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, with a single 737-700 used as a charter aircraft, as a backup, and for pilot training. The airline has been characterized by its rapid expansion, a result of the deregulation of the aviation industry in Europe in 1997 and the success of its low-cost business model. Ryanair's route network serves 40 countries in Europe, North Africa (Morocco), and the Middle East (Israel, Jordan and Turkey).

The company has at times been criticised for its refusal to issue invoices for the VAT-exempt services it provides (airfares), poor working conditions, heavy use of extra charges, bad customer service, and tendency to intentionally generate controversy in order to gain free publicity.

Destinations

Countries in which Ryanair operates (October 2022)

Main article: List of Ryanair destinations
Ryanair's largest base is at London-Stansted with 44 aircraft, followed by its home base at Dublin Airport. Ryanair operates from 84 bases connecting 35 countries across Europe and North Africa, some of which only base a single aircraft. Several non-base airports serve more flights and/or destinations than certain base airports.

Ryanair traditionally prefers to fly to smaller or secondary airports usually outside major cities to help the company benefit from lower landing fees and quick turn-around times to reduce costs. Ryanair has even referred to Bratislava Airport in Slovakia as "Bratislava Vienna", despite Vienna being 80 km (50 mi) away in another country. In some cases, secondary airports are not distant from the city they serve, and can be closer than the city's major airport; this is the case at Rome Ciampino Airport.

Ryanair does still serve several major airports, including Amsterdam Schiphol, Athens, Barcelona El Prat, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Lisbon, London-Gatwick, Madrid Barajas, Marseille, Oslo-Gardermoen and Rome-Fiumicino. Some of these cities do not have a viable secondary airport that Ryanair could use as an alternative. More recently, Ryanair has grown more at primary airports as it looks to attract more business passengers. In the summer of 2014, the airline opened bases in Athens, Lisbon and the primary airports of Brussels and Rome for the first time.

Ryanair flies in a point to-point model rather than the more traditional airline hub and spoke model where the passengers have to change aircraft in transit at a major airport, usually being able to reach more destinations this way. In April 2017 Ryanair added connecting flights to its portfolio, starting with a new transfer hub in Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO). Ryanair has 50 European bases. Despite it being an Irish airline, it also has a significant presence in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom as well as many other European countries. Currently, its biggest country market is Italy, with fourteen bases and nine non-base airports.

Ryanair's largest competitor is EasyJet which has a far greater focus on larger or primary airports such as Amsterdam and Paris-Charles de Gaulle, heavily targeting business passengers. Ryanair also serves sun and beach destinations with bases in the Canary Islands, Cyprus, the Greek Islands and Malta among others. In August 2014, the airline unveiled ambitious plans to establish a major hub in Israel to service a broad range of European routes. In December 2014 Ryanair announced plans to open its 72nd base in 2015 in the Azores. In February 2018, due to the Scottish Government not abolishing or reducing Air Passenger Duty (APD), Ryanair announced that it would cut many flights out of Glasgow Airport resulting in the airline closing its base there. The only routes out of Glasgow by the end of October were Dublin, Kraków and Wroclaw, with the rest being suspended permanently. This resulted in the loss of 300 members of airport staff. In April 2019, the airline reinstated four of its routes; to Alicante, Brussels, Málaga and Warsaw. In 2022, Ryanair announced that it would close its base at Frankfurt Airport in a row over fees, with the loss of 17 routes. The five aircraft based there are to be based in other locations throughout Europe.

Top airports by destinations

Airport IATA Destinations
Republic of Ireland Dublin DUB 122
United Kingdom London-Stansted STN 95
Italy Milan-Bergamo BGY 81
Austria Vienna VIE 77
Spain Malaga AGP 77
Spain Alicante ALC 75
Poland Kraków KRK 74
Belgium Brussels-Charleroi CRL 73
Spain Palma de Mallorca PMI 71
United Kingdom Edinburgh EDI 64
United Kingdom Manchester MAN 64
Malta Malta MLA 61
Germany Berlin BER 58
Spain Barcelona BCN 58
Portugal Porto OPO 57
Portugal Lisbon LIS 53
Italy Palermo PMO 52
Italy Bologna BLQ 51
France Marseille MRS 48

Top airports by destinations 2007–17

City destinations retention

Republic of Ireland Dublin 185 73%
United Kingdom London Stansted 132 69%
Italy Bergamo 124 65%
Belgium Charleroi 116 70%
Spain Girona 112 35%
Germany Hahn 103 44%
Germany Weeze 97 45%
Spain Alicante 90 61%
Spain Madrid 86 57%
Italy Pisa 86 53%

Choosing destinations

When Ryanair negotiates with airport operators, it demands very low landing and handling fees, as well as financial assistance with marketing and promotional campaigns. In subsequent contract renewal negotiations, the airline has been reported to play airports against each other, threatening to withdraw services and deploy the aircraft elsewhere, if the airport does not make further concessions. According to Michael O'Leary's biography, A Life in Full Flight, Ryanair's growing popularity and also growing bargaining power, with both airports and aircraft manufacturers, has resulted in the airline being less concerned about a market research/demographics approach to route selection to one based more on experimentation. This means it is more likely to fly its aircraft between the lowest-cost airports in anticipation that its presence alone on that route will be sufficient to create a demand which previously may not have existed, either in whole or in part.

In April 2006, a failure to reach agreement on a new commercial contract resulted in Ryanair announcing that it would withdraw service on the Dublin–Cardiff route at short notice. The airport management rebutted Ryanair's assertion that airport charges were unreasonably high, claiming that the Cardiff charges were already below Ryanair's average and claimed that Ryanair had recently adopted the same negotiating approach with Cork Airport and London Stansted Airport. In 2009, Ryanair was reported to have adopted 'harsh' negotiating with Shannon Airport, threatening to close 75% of its operations there from April 2010. Ryanair was forced to give up its Rome Ciampino–Alghero route, after the route was allocated to Air One, as a public service obligation (PSO) route. The European Commission is investigating the actions of the Italian Government in assigning PSO routes and thus restricting competition. In 2016 Ryanair withdrew over half of its flights from Rygge airport in Norway, after which the airport decided to close down totally, as they were privately owned and would make a loss on the low traffic volume. In some cases (an increasing number as the years' pass), Ryanair has decided to use large airports where they are not dominant and to pay the normal fees there. Examples include Barcelona, Oslo, Copenhagen and Manchester, which the carrier increased flights in 2021.