Strategy - Ryanair

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

Cathal Ryan and Declan Ryan have started Ryanair since 1985. For nearly a year, Ryanair had operated a 14-seat turboprop between Waterford and Gatwick Airport on the outskirts of London. The airline targeted low-fare segment market. It initiated service from London’s secondary airports. In terms of competition, Waterford and Gatwick didn’t pose any challenges.

A unique cost cutting policy would be the main core competence of Ryanair. It refuses to provide any meal vouchers or hotel accommodation for flights which are delayed or cancelled for reasons beyong Ryanair’s control in order to reduce the operating cost. (Ryanair, 2011) Meanwhile, Ryanair is using LFA business model to design the size of its

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 consists of a centralised functional organisational structure. Normally, employees positioned within a centralised functional

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s charismatic boss and one of the most successful business man in the world. Starting from a single plane company, in about 30 years he has made Ryanair the largest airline in Europe. With turnover of €5 billion and a profit of €591.4 million in 2014 (Ryanair on top1000.). He achieved this through his masterful leadership and with an attractive business model with central focus on cheap costs. So how did Michael O’Leary

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

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.

case can be broken down by addressing the following list of questions which follow a

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

The purpose of this report is to comment at the first part how Ryanair achieve its competitive advantage through the RBV analysis (Barney,1991), the second part will assess its approach to the diversification through the Ansoff matrix , the third part will discuss the company’s organisational culture using the cultural web modeland last part its internationalization strategy.

Now I am going to discuss Ryan air’s (RA) current strategic position by analysing its macro (external)and micro (internal) environment.

The objective of this report is to appraise and evaluate the external environment, internal capabilities of Ryanair and assess the competitive environment. This project report also evaluates the marketing focus deployed by Ryanair in the year 2009 when the airline achieved a benchmark by being Europe’s largest carrier by passenger numbers and market capitalisation.