Further growth for Ryanair was announced today with new routes to London Stansted, and increased frequencies on the routes to Barcelona, Pisa and Rome. Their colourful CEO, Michael O’Leary was in town at The Balmoral Hotel to make the announcement, which is perhaps less exciting than others which have been made in the past but clearly show that the airline is committed to increasing its presence in the capital.
Ryanair fly to and from 187 airports all over Europe with 9 destinations from Edinburgh and are already the world’s largest national scheduled airline, but Edinburgh to London Stansted is considered a key new route to counter the high cost of their competitors.
The airline plan further growth next year and so in little over 12 months time they would hope to have a 20% market share in Edinburgh.
Ryanair carried 86 million passengers this year but nonetheless anticipate growing by 50% over the next five years. The delivery of new Boeing aircraft this autumn will be the first of 180 new aircraft which should allow that growth in passenger traffic.
CEO of Ryanair Michael O’Leary said: “We have been number 1 or 2 in most markets up till now solely because of our low fares. The average saving on flying with Ryanair against others is about 163 euros.
“We have spent the last 12 months evolving and improving the customer experience. We have spent heavily on improving the brand and the family product. We rolled out the business product just yesterday and continue to invest in the digital.”
The business has clearly recognised the things which only served to infuriate those trying to book flights. O’Leary continued: “The Recaptcha feature on the website has gone. We now have a 24 hour grace period for minor changes to passenger bookings. We have transformed the website and the mobile app and the response from customers has been fantastic to such an extent that our forward bookings are 6% higher than last year.
“Month on month over the last five months we have been running with load factors about 4 or 5% up on the same period last year.”
The airline now offers Family Extra which they hope will encourage families to use Ryanair more.
“The Business Plus service will be a very important tool for us particularly here in Edinburgh where we want to cater for the business customer going to London or Dublin. It is a little known fact that we already have a huge proportion of the business traffic. We have not done enough for the business passenger until now. For around £40 business people can have flexibility with Fast Track through security and Priority boarding and the premium seats at the front and back of the plane along with 20kg checked baggage.
“In Scotland we are continuing to grow. Edinburgh will have a 3 times daily service to London Stansted from the end of October and following that we expect that all business fares will reduce to under £100 return even if you are booking on the day before travel after the introduction of this service.
“We expect to carry over 3 million passengers from Scotland’s three airports. This will sustain about 3,000 jobs across Scotland.
“We will offer 32 routes out of Edinburgh with additional flights to Barcelona, Pisa and Rome with five aircraft based here. The message is that Ryanair is wonderful; we have transformed the customer experience and I am committed to being nicer to people by practising on a daily basis. It is a slow but difficult process!”
To celebrate Ryanair are offering 100,000 fares of just £19.99 for travel in September October and November available before midnight on 1 September 2014 while stocks last.
O’Leary concluded: “It is no secret that our growth at Edinburgh is directly related to our fantastic relationship with Edinburgh Airport and we expect to look at new routes from winter 2015 onwards when we will have new aircraft.”
CEO of Edinburgh Airport Gordon Dewar said: “Ryanair are our perfect partners and have the same ambition for growth as we do. We are delighted with the new business passenger experience, and we are excited to continue our relationship with Ryanair.”
The Edinburgh Airport recorded an exclusive interview with Michael O’Leary who had already been in Glasgow and Prestwick this morning to make similar announcements there.
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