Why Did Ryanair Launch To Near Bankruptcy?

Ryanair was established in the year 1985 by the RYAN family and has grown from a small airline flying a short hop from Waterford to London, into one of the Europe’s largest carriers. The company expanded and within 4 years it had 350 employees, 14 aircraft, and carried 600,000 passengers a year. It is currently serving to 26 European Countries with 148 destinations. It operates on 794 different routes daily serving by more than 1050 flights in a day. It has totally 169 aircrafts running for different routes with 5986number of employees working in it However, Ryanair’s costs rose drastically and it recorded losses of £20 Million sover four years despite its growth. Although consumers were continuing to fly Ryanair

The strategic plan of Ryanair has been to establish itself as Europe’s leading low-fares airline.” Ryanair aims to offer low fares that generate increased passenger traffic while maintaining a continuous focus on cost-containment and operating efficiencies.” (www.ryanair.com)

Generally speaking, the launch strategy of Ryanair was not the best one for that moment in time. They began operations between Dublin and London, in a very saturated market, which was already served by two competing and very experienced companies owned by the governments:

Ryanair airline has been characterized by its rapid expansion and this is the result of the deregulation of the aviation industry in Europe in 1997 and the success of its low-cost business model.

Ryanair, originally an Irish low-cost airline and established by the Ryan family in the year of 1984 starting off with only 25 members of staff. Replicating the American Southwest airline business model and then officially relaunched in the year 1990. It has vastly grown from being a single-aircraft family operation into one of the world’s top leading airlines. Now Ryanair has reached 11,458 employees. The airline carries over 131 million passengers per annum on over 2,000 flights daily, from 86 different routes, flying to more than 205 destinations in 33 countries.

Ryanair chose to enter the market at a time when the consumer base needed a low cost alternative and the

Prior to 1991, Ryanair had suffered from continuous losses from 1985 to 1989. The first reason that put it into this situation was that it tried to position itself as a low fare airline with the first rate services. It tried to keep low and unrestricted fare, while keep focusing on the best customer service and relationship. This mixed model was proven inefficiency. The low price could lure number of

To identify an appropriate strategy for a given industry one must look into the external and internal factors influencing the company. The following report will discuss these factors regarding Ryanair, which is one of the leading budget European airlines.

In 2010, Ryanair had a 204% increase in profits showing adjusted net profit of 318.8million. This was despite the economic downturn suffered throughout the country. Many competitors announced losses or bankruptcy but Ryanair had great profits. 51 new Boeing 737-800 aircrafts were purchased which made it 232 Boeing 737-800 in total. Negotiations of 200 aircraft order with Boeing was terminated. This will show a substantiate fall in capital expenditure over the next 3 years. Increased profitability shows rise in cash in hand by 535million to 2.8billion. The board proposes to return 500 of this cash as dividends. Also

Ryanair incorporated at no-frills, low-cost, quick to reach consumers destinations in a much modernized aviation industry. For instance, it is more cheaply, and more reliable, than any other airline including British Airways. They do not compromise on safety, top-drawer punctuality, near perfect baggage handling and efficient ‘green’ policy. The target markets of this particular airline are those who compromises on comfort and fare conscious customers. For example: Students, low-income earners, busy businessmen, and family (Ryanair.com). On the other hand, British Airways strategy is to become the world’s leading global premium airline by making cost that is base more efficiently and focus on outstanding customer service, which is a critical part of their strategy. The 5 strategy goals are to be the airline of choice for long haul premium customers, deliver and outstanding service for customers at every touch point, grow their presence in key global cities, build on the leading position in London and meet customers’ needs and improve margins through new revenue streams (British Airways PLC .com). The target market of British Airways is leisure travellers, consumers who want comfort and cost is not an issue (marketingmagazine.co.uk). Both aviation companies are customers based but they do differ from each other in their operation strategy.

In spite of the cost deduction planning, Ryanair also has designed other plans to maximize its profit and expand the market share of the company. On 1st February 2003, Ryanair announced that it was acquiring Buzz, the loss making budget subsidiary of KLM, based at Stansted. Ryanair purchased the loss making company Buzz, as it was a golden opportunity to pick up a ready- made bundle of take -off and landing slots at Stansted Airport, where there is intensifying competition for space. This would not only increase Ryanair‟s share of slots in Stansted from 33 to 49.5 per cent but also produce profit by the fiscal year end of March 2004. Ryanair also aimed to increase its sales through ancillary services in conjunction with its core airline

Ryanair has always managed to come up with cost effective strategies which helps it to maintain a competitive advantage over its rivals. It also considers the present environment as the basis for formulating its strategies, for example, the airline made an effort to gain soccer fans as its customers by announcing a special return flight for all Arsenal fans from London Stansted to Barcelona Girona, so that they can watch the club’s vital champions league match in Barcelona on the 6 April, the flight would leave from London on 6 April at 8:30 am and

The aim of this report is to carry out a strategic analysis of Ryanair. This will involve investigating the organisation’s external environment, to identify opportunities and threats it might face, and its strategic capability, to isolate key strengths and any weaknesses that need dealing with. Finally, a SWOT analysis will be carried out to assess the extent to which Ryanair’s strategies are suitable to what is happening in its task environment.

Ryanair was one of the first low cost carriers that arrived in the European market. The EU integration policies ensured that it got a massive boost in the ways it could enlarge in the market. There were a lot of destinations available due to the high number of urban places in the EU and the regulations that allowed the free movement of people.

For many years up to 1990, the financial performance of the company which was negative, dramatically changed with the appointing of the new Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary. The new management vision was to restructure the company based on the Southwest Airlines prototype business model with a culture of low-cost / low fare. Thanks to the European Union deregulation air transport in …, the company opened new routes and bases, increase its market share and became the first airline in Europe to carry over 100 Million international customers in a calendar year (Ryanair,2016) due to its low cost competitive advantage.