Ryanair Business Strategy Essay

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 case study which I have decided to choose is Ryanair. The company began in 1985 by Christopher Ryan, Liam Lonergan and Tony Ryan the airline started with just 25 employees and 15 aircraft. In 1987 Ryanair purchased their first jet and began to fly to various destinations throughout Europe. In 1990 Ryanair accumulated losses of £20 Million and Michael O Leary was made Chief Executive of Ryanair. Michael O Leary wanted to make Ryanair a low cost airline which would provide cheap flights throughout Europe and use a low cost leadership strategy.

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:

The airline business is an industry that is competitive and unique, focussing on consumer choice and the responsiveness of airlines to changes in the external business environment. For any airline, this environment can be very complex as it is ‘hard for them to fully understand and impossible for them to fully control’ (The Times, n.d. p1). Virgin Atlantic is an international airline that is based in the UK. It was started by the entrepreneur Richard Branson in 1982 and now flies to 30 destinations around the world (Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, 2011). By looking at

Threat of new entrants: Because of the high investment needed to start an airline, the threat of new entrants is relatively low. However, with more countries developing, such as China and India, the industry is expected to have consistent growth in the future. This may make it more attractive for startups to try

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.

As Ryanair considers its expansion in pursuit of achieving its goals of making air travel free it must ensure that it is able to keep its core brand values. This is because it is them that create Ryanair’s brand

Ryanair is an Irish based airline company, headquartered in Dublin airport, Ireland. It was established in 1985, and since Ryanair has expanded from a small airline to serving 90.6 million passengers. It operates 1,800 flights a day connecting 200 destinations. (Ryanair Annual Report, 2015; (Ryanair)).

Ryanair is one of the most profitable low-cost and low-fare airlines in the world. Even though it was merely bankruptcy in 1991, it could stand up and become very successful by 1999. An issues was what led Ryanair to huge losses in 1991, how did it re-gain its position, and what lay ahead in the next century.

Set up in the year 1985 at a capital of 1 pound with a staff strength of 25, Ryanair is today the World’s favourite and most commonly used airline which operates more than 1,400 flights per day from 44 bases and 1100+ low fare routes across 27 countries, connecting 160 destinations. Ryanair operates a fleet of 250 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft and is expected to increase it by another 64 in 2 years. Ryanair currently has staff strength of more than 8,000 people. Its passenger base has been increasing

Ryanair is Europe’s largest low-fares, no-frills short-haul carrier. The organisation was founded in 1985 as a conventional airline but re-launched itself in 1990/1991 as a low-cost carrier, replicating American Southwest Airlines’ business model. Since then Ryanair has grown

Ryanair positioned itself as a low cost airline, which delivered services equivalent to that of British Airways and Aer Lingus. In terms of service quality, they positioned themselves in the same category as the aforementioned airlines, but at the same time, charging a relatively low price when compared to British Airways and Aer Lingus. Their strategy was to deliver first rate/ good quality customer services and offer meals and amenities comparable to that of British Airways and Aer Lingus. The second strategy was to charge a single fare ticket of I£98 on it Dublin-London service, which was very low when compared to British Airways and Aer Lingus’s rate of I£208 or I£99 if booked in advance.

1. In-depth environmental analysis of the European Airline industry and discuss the implications for the budget sector and especially for Ryanair. 2. An integrated understanding of the functioning of a company – its human and technical operations, leadership, customer relationships and financial structure. 3. Implications of the internal functioning to create viable strategic positioning and discuss any changes to Ryanair’s approach to ensure an improved sustainability 4. Evaluate the strategic leadership style of Michael O’Leary

We will see how Ryanair was successful as world’s one of the most favoured low-fare airline and how did it apply each of this mix by putting in the