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Ryanair CEO talks potential expansion to US...

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Heavy Set

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 28, 2002
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I found the article below and it made some interesting points - not sure how realistic. O'Leary wants to fly super-cheap flights to the US from various points in Europe (probably many of their hubs) but he needs two things:
- Open skies between all of Europe and the US
- Cheap, available 767/A330/787 sized airplanes

With all of the newer airplanes arriving (787 and A350 soon), won't it be likely that a lot of older 767-300s and A330s become available? Is that logical? If so, maybe this all happens sooner than we think. Norwegian Longhaul is beginning cheap 787 flights across the Atlantic very soon - that should be an interesting test case.

Thoughts?



See the article below:



Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary has named the five airlines he expects to be the only large players in the European market of the future.
Air France, British Airways, EasyJet and Lufthansa join the Irish budget carrier on O'Leary's shortlist.

He reckons Ryanair still has a long way to go toward reaching its full potential in Europe, and is casting his eye further afield: long-haul low-cost services to the USA are a possibility, he says, but only if Europe and America sign a full open-skies deal.

As it strives to maximise European business, Ryanair is exploring the potential of adding new bases to the 57 it already operates across the continent, with a focus on airports larger than the "secondary or tertiary" ones it already serves, and O'Leary confirms that German airports Cologne and Dortmund have approached his airline with incentives to operate there as services by Air Berlin are cut back.

Network contraction by rivals is also creating opportunities in Spain and Italy, says O'Leary, while even busy airports such as London Gatwick - to which Ryanair operates, but at which it does not have a base - have slots at certain times of day amenable to non-time-sensitive flights serving holiday destinations.

As to the possibility of adding transatlantic services, O'Leary sketches out a vision of operating 30-40 long-range twinjets of the Airbus A330's or Boeing 787's size, but notes an obstacle: lack of aircraft availability due to the order backlog created by Gulf airlines' expansion.

In the nearer term, Ryanair is planning to revamp its website. O'Leary describes the current interface as "too clunky". Buoyed by the success of its reserved seating initiative, the carrier is planning to expand the number of rows allocated to the system, and O'Leary is looking for other service innovations to join priority boarding and luggage charges among innovations that have changed attitudes toward low-cost short-haul travel.

The Ryanair chief says that as a result of its introduction of charges for checked-in luggage, only 19% of passengers now want to check luggage in. He sees a future in which airports are transformed because they no longer need check-in halls, baggage-handling systems and lost baggage recovery systems, and in which passengers will be able to arrive much closer to departure times.

Airports will hate it, he says, because passenger dwell-times in the retail areas will reduce, but airport buildings could be much smaller and simpler.
Meanwhile, it looks as if Ryanair's existing baggage plans will soon be modified to introduce charges for putting large carry-on bags in the overhead racks being charged. Only those that can fit under the seat will be free.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...vision-of-streamlined-european-sector-389241/
 
This entire low-cost longhaul flying will be difficult to achieve - it is all about initial aircraft cost, per flight operational costs and aircraft utilization rates.

Ryanair would need a super-low cost structure because it can't likely fly more than 2-3 sectors per day on each aircraft across the pond. They would look to buy very cheap widebodies to bring the financing costs down.

I do agree with the point about older 767s and A330s being replaced by newer generation airplanes. Probably some good deals out there with older 767s and early generation A330s but Ryanair would need to buy entire fleets of 30-40 aircraft to build the necessary scale. With 50+ European hubs it would be interesting to see what city pairs Ryanair could match between Europe and the US. I would imagine secondary airports like Newburgh and BWI would be targeted in the US to keep airport fee costs lower....
 

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