DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Bargain prices available on major airlines' websites have been good for business, according to Ryanair boss
Low fares on offer at the major European airlines' websites have boosted, rather than damaged, the no-frills airlines' business, according to Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary. He maintains that the wide availability of low fares has made customers "more price conscious".
This newly stimulated customer price consciousness, says O'Leary, has boosted Ryanair's bookings from 222,000 to 350,000 a week over seven weeks, although he concedes that some of that increase would have been through a seasonal effect. He also says that, despite Ryanair's tactic of operating to secondary airports, the airline's business passengers now constitute 48% of the total.
Ryanair's German hub Hahn Airport may not be as close to Frankfurt as Main Airport, but Hahn's catchment area also includes business-rich towns such as Mannheim, O'Leary points out. Operating from airports other than those used by the major carriers "means we fly similar routes to British Airways, not the same", he says.
Ryanair will maintain its policy of choosing secondary airports, O'Leary insists, because their lower traffic allows them to offer high turnaround speed and efficiency as well as low costs, which is crucial to Ryanair's operating formula. He explains: "Low-cost airports are great for efficiency as well. A 25min turnaround is no problem and delay is less likely. You try getting that kind of performance at [London] Gatwick or Frankfurt Main - it's impossible."
Price action by the major carriers hits EasyJet and Go harder, O'Leary says, because they operate at the same airports. "But EasyJet can take it [the competition] on costs and their bookings may go up too," he claims. EasyJet says the low fares campaign has had no effect on its load factors despite it putting far more capacity on the market than this time last year. "We are still filling our aircraft," says EasyJet.
Source: Flight International
