Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary was in typically buoyant mood in Edinburgh today when he announced that the low cost airline has had such success with its Edinburgh to London Stansted route that it will increase the slots on offer to four times daily from winter 2015. Currently Ryanair fly only three times per day between the capital and Stansted.
The surprise has been that over a quarter of the passengers are business customers who the airline boss is quite prepared to admit they had largely ignored up till now.
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O’Leary told The Edinburgh Reporter: “It’s been enormously successful. We have been somewhat surprised by the strength of business bookings on this route. To start in the first few months with almost a 90% load factor was very rewarding.
“Partly because we are so strong in Stansted we can bring more people to Scotland and we are now going to increase the number of times we fly to and from London Stansted in winter 2015. We are also adding new routes to Frankfurt Hahn, Alicante, Krakow, Malaga and Tenerife.
“It is a period of great growth for Ryanair.We think Scotland is going to do well in the next 12 months something which would be helped if the government would only scrap Air Passenger Duty. It would be a major tourism boost to Scotland if that happens. Scotland has been transformed in recent years, particularly in the two hubs of Edinburgh and Glasgow which both feature very prominently on the list of interesting places to visit across Europe.
” I am very hopeful. This year we will carry 3.5m passengers to and from Scotland. If APD were scrapped the number of passengers will double in Scotland. The increased number of passengers would create  3,000 new jobs in Glasgow and in Edinburgh Airports.
“We will be talking about new routes from Edinburgh Airport in winter 2015 with Edinburgh Airport this afternoon and so we hope to have more good news for you later in the spring.”
Ryanair have delivered an extra 21 routes in Ireland after the government there got rid of APD and they believe there is no reason why that cannot be replicated here in Scotland.
The boss of what is one of Europe’s success stories is happy to have been proved wrong on his original thoughts when he joined the company. He explained: “When I arrived at Ryanair 27 years ago it was broke and about to go bust. I strongly advocated that the company should be shut down. We have led the way in bringing low fares across Europe, copying the model set by South West Airlines in the US. It has completely transformed the way people travel around Europe and the deregulation of big airlines and to a degree monopoly airports has been a great success of the European Union. We show up the subsidised railways all the time.”
For families the airline is offering a 20% discount when a family flies together for the third time in a year. As well as that there are other family friendly options such as increased baggage for children and the possibility of taking car seats along too. The airline is trying to make it more affordable and accessible for families to fly with them.
The airline will have a brand new mobile app in March along with a personalised website too.
As to the battle with Easyjet to be number one in Europe by 2015/16 it is not necessarily a friendly one, but O’Leary believes there is room for growth of both companies on slightly different models.
2015 marks Ryanair’s 30th birthday and from carrying only 5,000 passengers each year the airline has grown to become Europe’s biggest airline carrying 100m people each year.
Ryanair is releasing 100,000 seats for sale across the European network at prices from £19.99 for travel in February, March and April. These fares can be booked online until midnight on 22 January.
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