Ryanair in 2015

[Passenger]

Ryanair says it will halt flights to and from Tampere at the end of October. The seven routes are to re-open around April 1, 2016. In the meantime, Lappeenranta will be Ryanair’s only Finnish destination. Ryanair plans to shift some of the planes now serving its Finnish destinations to its new Copenhagen and Berlin routes. “Unfortunately we have a plane shortage, which won’t be resolved until 2016,” says Elina Hakkarainen, Ryanair’s sales and marketing director for the Nordic region. Next year, Ryanair plans to take delivery of 40 new planes, some of which will begin plying Nordic routes.

If Ryanair would not have opened other routes, there would be no reason for them to close Tampere. Boeing delivers on schedule, so Ryanair knew/knows that there are not enough aircraft for their schedule. So unless Boeing delivers before schedule, some routes indeed have to be cut.

Let this be yet another lesson for those regional airports who think that Ryanair is a loyal customer: they are not. Once the legal support for a new route is cashed, there is a high risk they move. Tampere Airport has just finalized an upgrade on its Terminal 2, at a cost of 3 mio Euro. Official re-opening: next week. Sole user of that Terminal 2: Ryanair, indeed. I wish them good luck, the guys from Tampere Airport who now have to negociate new handling costs for T2 with Ryanair.

[Boeing767copilot]

“If Michael O’Leary was here now, I’d publicly thank him.” So declared Budapest Airport chief commercial officer Kam Jandu (pictured), when discussing the value of low-fare airlines during Session 1 of the Routes Europe Strategy Summit at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre.

http://www.hmgaerospace.com/news/show/8722

[Passenger]

Report from Yvonne Briggs, Ryanair passenger:

"...We received a text from Ryanair at approximately 5pm the day before to say our flight for 9.30 the next morning had been cancelled. After trying to get through to customer services for 30 minutes, I was told that I could get a refund for the flight. I was assured this would not affect our return flight from Barcelona back to the East Midlands 4 days later. After a bit of hassle we managed to get a flight to Barcelona with another airline, assured that our return flight with Ryanair was still valid. We enjoyed 4 days in Barcelona and arrived at El Prat for our return journey, we had previously checked in online and had our boarding passes. We went through all passport control and baggage checking and were at the gate waiting to get on the plane. We handed our boarding passes over (they had been scanned and accepted earlier), only to be told that we were not on this flight. We were told to stand to one side, which we did, they boarded other passengers and then closed the doors. We asked what was going on and we were told very rudely that we were to go downstairs to Ryanair office. Nobody helped us. When we eventually found the office, they simply said we had cancelled the flight, we had not, and our account had been refunded whilst we were already in Barcelona. The office would not help us to book tickets for the next day, would not help us to book a hotel for the night and again they ignored us, they simply were very unkind and very uncaring. Had it not been for a shop worker who stayed late and helped us to use the shop's computer and for the shop worker to use his own mobile to help us, we would have been stranded for the night..."

Posted on 13th April 2015 on Airlinequality.com

[Stij]

my rule of thumb:

Never ever cancel an FR reservation before the trip is over, if a flight was cancelled, adapt your travel plans and ask for a reimbursement afterwards.

FR is cheaper than the others, claiming the opposite is foolish. Stating it's equivalent to the more expensive ones is just as foolish. They're cheaper for a reason. the problem is not all pax know this.

Reminds me of an AA experience some years ago: my routings was SAN-LAX-LHR-BRU, but I was nearer to LAX than to SAN. Called AA and asked if I could cancel the SAN-LAX. It was possible, but I had to pay 250$ (or something), so I declined the offer and drove to SAN. To find out the leg was cancelled. Fortunately they were willing to put it back in as they couldn't find the payment for the cancellation AND kept the Saab waiting for me while they sorted out the paperwork.

Cheers,

Stij

[Inquirer]

FR is cheaper than the others, claiming the opposite is foolish.
Stating it's equivalent to the more expensive ones is just as foolish.
They're cheaper for a reason.

if only all people around here would accept your wisdom and accept the correlation between price and quality, it would avoid much of the pointless discussions about price/quality we see here all the time.

BTW - this intrinsic relationship between these 2 key parameters is also at the basis of the problem I have with their new commercial strategy: as they try to improve their product, they have to take a cost hit because of it. Costs they have decided to spread out over all of their passengers and as flanker2 has mentioned before, it's something which is getting increasingly noticed by the traveling public.

Rather than erode their unique selling point and become like all the rest really, they should have offered their premium routes through a seperate brand. What they are doing now is nothing but a panic reaction after their failed attempts of getting Aer Lingus on board as their premium brand, while they saw their lunch being eaten by the likes of easyjet, vueling, etc.

It should have been done in a much smarter way, so as to book much better results in new markets WITHOUT ruining the core business itself.

[Passenger]

FR is cheaper than the others, claiming the opposite is foolish. Stating it's equivalent to the more expensive ones is just as foolish. They're cheaper for a reason. the problem is not all pax know this.
Stij

Claiming that Ryanair is always cheaper than the others is also foolish. It really makes sense to shop around and look what others have to offer. Simply because yield management decides on the prices, and not the commercial department with their "prices as from 19,99 €".

[sean1982]

True SN story...

Moderator note: this is a topic about Ryanair. Please remain on topic and feel free to post your story in a topic on Brussels Airlines

[Avroflyer]

Seriously Sean ? I can also post negative reviews about ryanair from the exact same source you know...

[sean1982]

I just did because "passenger" felt the need to do it for FR ... I know you can, Avroflyer .. in fact you can find reports on that source for every airline known to mankind

[Avroflyer]

I did notice that indeed while looking through the list of airlines

[airazurxtror]

Ryanair has joined Instagram, offering behind the scenes images of life inside the airline, snapshots of its 190 destinations and the chance for customers to share their favourite Ryanair photos and experiences through the @Ryanair account.
Instagram is Ryanair's latest social media platform, following the launch of its Twitter account, which has almost 150,000 followers, and its YouTube channel and LinkedIn account.
Further platforms are set to follow, it said, as part of its "Always Getting Better" improvement programme.

http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/news/ ... ?market=ie

[airazurxtror]

Ryanair and Aer Lingus renew Twitter feud

The two Irish airlines have clashed again on Twitter, with Ryanair once more having the last laugh, with a tweet yesterday claiming Aer Lingus offered "nearly" low fares.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... -feud.html

[Passenger]

Ryanair and Aer Lingus renew Twitter feud

The two Irish airlines have clashed again on Twitter, with Ryanair once more having the last laugh, with a tweet yesterday claiming Aer Lingus offered "nearly" low fares.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... -feud.html

Last laugh? It's acid laugh. If someone needs an example of a very hostile take over bid, the Ryanair attempt to take over Aer Lingus for sure is. But then, the European Commission blocked it, leaving Ryanair with a 30% stake that is useless and that Ryanair will sooner or later have to sell.

[airazurxtror]

Ryanair, la première compagnie aérienne en Europe, a lancé son programme de l’hiver 2015 au départ de Paris-Beauvais avec une nouvelle ligne vers Palerme (35 lignes au total) et des vols supplémentaires vers Alicante (2 à 3 par semaine).

- See more at: http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/nouve ... NabNA.dpuf

Destinations : Alghero, Alicante, Barcelone-El Prat, Bari, Béziers, Bologne, Bratislava, Brindisi, Budapest, Cagliari, Cracovie, Dublin, Faro, Fès, Figari, Gérone, Göteborg, Lanzarote, Lisbonne, Madrid, Malaga, Manchester, Marrakech, Milan-Bergame, Nador, Oslo-Rygge, Oujda, Palerme donc, Palma de Majorque, Pescara, Pise, Porto, Rabat, Rome-Ciampino, Saragosse, Séville, Shannon, Stockholm-Skavsta, Tanger, Ténériffe South, Thessalonique, Trapani, Valence, Varsovie-Modlin, Venise-Trévise, Vilnius, Wroclaw et Zadar. Soit 12 aéroports en Italie, 11 en Espagne, 6 au Maroc, 3 en Pologne, 3 au Portugal, 2 en France, 2 en Irlande, 2 en Suède, et 1 chacun en Croatie, Grèce, Hongrie, Lituanie, Norvège, Slovaquie et au Royaume Uni.

http://www.air-journal.fr/2015-04-17-pa ... 42843.html

Ryanair winter program from Paris-Beauvais : 35 destinations, one new : Palermo.

[airazurxtror]

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would not change an order for Ryanair to sell down its 30% stake in rival Aer Lingus because of IAG's proposed bid for Aer Lingus.
The CMA published a provisional verdict this morning.
This said that as British Airways owner IAG has made its bid conditional on securing Ryanair's support, the low budget airline remains a significant hurdle to any merger.

[Passenger]

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would not change an order for Ryanair to sell down its 30% stake in rival Aer Lingus because of IAG's proposed bid for Aer Lingus. The CMA published a provisional verdict this morning. This said that as British Airways owner IAG has made its bid conditional on securing Ryanair's support, the low budget airline remains a significant hurdle to any merger.

Please quote correct. The CMA is a public authority, so there's no need to censor them, specially not by cutting a phrase that explains the main issue for the decision. This is what the CMA says about that "hurdle": “...As the decisions in our report made clear, without any action to reduce its shareholding, Ryanair would remain a significant hurdle to any merger because it has an incentive as a competitor of Aer Lingus and, by its shareholding, the ability to hinder Aer Lingus from implementing its own commercial strategy..."

Full CMA text:

The CMA has provisionally decided that there is no material change in circumstances or special reason for it not to implement the remedies in the Ryanair/Aer Lingus inquiry.

In February, Ryanair requested that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) re-examine its decision to require it to sell its 29.8% stake in Aer Lingus Group plc (Aer Lingus) down to 5%. This followed a judgment from the Court of Appeal dismissing Ryanair’s legal challenge to this decision.

Ryanair argued in particular that IAG’s proposed bid for Aer Lingus and the period of time that has elapsed since the decision was originally made by the Competition Commission in its report in August 2013, constitute a material change of circumstances and that the CMA no longer had the power to impose a divestment remedy on Ryanair.

After receiving that request, the CMA invited submissions from interested parties. After considering responses from Aer Lingus, IAG and the Irish government – and further submissions from Ryanair – the inquiry group of independent CMA panel members considering this issue has provisionally decided that there is no material change in circumstances or special reason not to proceed to implement the remedies set out in the report. The CMA will now consider further responses before taking its final decision.

The CMA is also consulting on the terms of a draft final order that would implement the remedies. In the event that it maintains its provisional decision, the CMA would expect to make a final order taking account of any comments it received on this draft final order.

Simon Polito, Chairman of the Ryanair/Aer Lingus inquiry group, said:

“Our provisional view is that the circumstances around IAG’s proposed bid are consistent with the findings in our report.

“As the decisions in our report made clear, without any action to reduce its shareholding, Ryanair would remain a significant hurdle to any merger because it has an incentive as a competitor of Aer Lingus and, by its shareholding, the ability to hinder Aer Lingus from implementing its own commercial strategy.

“We have carefully considered submissions from Ryanair and others and taken into account all the relevant circumstances, including the fact that the IAG bid is conditional on receiving an irrevocable commitment from Ryanair. Having done so, our provisional view is that neither recent events nor the time that has passed since our final report are reasons not to implement the divestment remedy.”

Source:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma- ... s-remedies

More info:
https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/ryanair-ae ... er-inquiry

[airazurxtror]

Please quote correct.

Some cheek ! I have no lesson of intellectual honesty to receive, certainly not from you, passenger.

[airazurxtror]

Deleted

[airazurxtror]

Tumbling oil prices might worry commodity producers, but could also mean cheaper flights for European vacationers—at least for those traveling with Ryanair.

At a conference on tourism in Madrid on Thursday,Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair, explained : "As oil prices fall or hedge prices fall, Ryanair expects to pass on that in the form of significantly lower air fares to our customers—that'll be very good for our growth."

On European skies becoming a true single market: “I want a single market in Europe. The problem is the single market keeps being hijacked by politicians so they get more power and more control. They’re incapable of making any decisions. Why does the tourism industry in Europe struggle? You’ve got 50% youth unemployment in Italy, yet they introduce a municipal tax of 6.5 euros per passenger, most of which goes to pay the pension of Alitalia pilots. You couldn’t make it up! And yet, nobody will shout ‘Stop!’ We are 20 years into the single European sky, and we’re making no progress whatsoever, yet Jose Manuel Barroso is here bullshitting away for a couple of hours. What has he done in 10 years for the single European sky? Nothing!

“I ignore demographic trends because almost every demographic forecast has always been wrong. If the German population falls from 80 [million] to 50 [million] in the next 20 years, I’m sure 30 million Turks and Irish will flood into Germany to make up the numbers. We’re the most optimistic company around. We’ve ordered almost 400 new aircraft over the next eight years. But, we have to be continually conscious of how that growth will be derailed by stupid politicians taxing tourism, raising bogus barriers and reducing the competitiveness of European tourism.”
“Politicians will continue to try to screw it up, but business leaders like Ryanair will continue to move faster than politicians can think — which, mind you, isn’t setting the bar very high.”

http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News ... sounds-off

[airazurxtror]

The provisional decision announced by the CMA on Friday upheld a previous ruling, which directed the airline to offload most of its stake because of competition.

The CMA cited IAG’s proposed bid for Aer Lingus as the reason behind the decision not to change the order.

Ryanair described the CMA’s provisional decision as “manifestly wrong.”

Shares in both Ryanair and Aer Lingus were recorded as being much lower on Friday.