Ryanair Business Model

MEMO To: Steven Rand From: Morgan Murphy and James Klein Subject: Response to Memo Assignement Date: February 28, 2013 Purpose: Demonstrate the similarities and differences between an article from a magazine and an article from an academic journal and apply what is learned to future learning. Summary: The areas that will be examined regarding the two articles will be; tone, vocabulary, author background, details about the airline that are included and excluded, as well as length.

Using this examination we will decide how to treat academic and magazine articles from here forth. Discussion: To begin with, Ryanair is a European budget airline based out of Dublin, Ireland. They are able to keep prices low, such as a round trip ticket from Dublin to Edinburgh for $30, because of their numerous budgeting techniques. The techniques and ideas used to cut costs, such as paying to use the restroom, cause a lot of controversy amongst the consumers. Still Ryanair has one of the largest fleets in Europe and continually has its flights filled near to capacity.

The question asked by these two articles is whether or not this type of business plan can last and if consumers will continue to put up with Ryanair’s budget tactics. The tone of each of the articles is the first trait noticed by the reader. The titles of each of these articles are a good indication of what the tone will be throughout the article. The Newsweek article, “Is this Any Way to Run An Airline” (Any Way to Run), puts the reader immediately in a relaxed state and almost makes the reader feel as though the author is on their side.

On the other hand, the article by the International Journal of Transport Management has a more formal title suggesting to the reader that this article is more for relaying facts than opinions. This article is titled, “The Sustainability of the Ryanair Model” (Ryanair Model). The introductions for both of these articles are also very different in their tone. “Ryanair Model” uses only facts and statistics to give the reader a short background as to where Ryanair stands amongst its competitors.

However, in “Any Way to Run” there is a background on the current savings techniques used by Ryanair that directly affect their customers because this article is meant to be read mainly by Ryanair customers. Going hand in hand with tone, vocabulary can also contribute to how formal or relaxed an article may sound. The type of vocabulary used in each article is used to effectively reach the targeted audience of each article. The vocabulary used in “Any Way to Run” is meant to be simple due to the fact that Newsweek is being read by a much larger audience than an academic a journal would be.

There are also many more quotes by Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, that are in fairly simple terms. An example of this would be O’Leary’s comment about fares when he stated, “You paid us a fare of $19-go away”. The other end of the spectrum is more technical vocabulary. Vocabulary that is used in “Ryanair Model” is only fully understood by economics and business professionals. In the “Ryanair Model” article, each section begins with pure statistics and facts with many terms such as net margin, industry average, deregulation etc.

These terms are somewhat understood by the common reader but in order for their full meaning to be understood it would take a business professional to understand the meanings behind them. There are also many tables and charts included in this article that would make mean more to someone who is familiar with reading those kinds of statistics. The choice of vocabulary is made by the author and the background of the author can determine what kind of vocabulary they may choose to use. The article, “Any Way to Run”, was written by Daniel McGinn MBA.

The academic article, “Ryanair Model”, was written by Sean Barrett PhD. While these authors are fairly similar in their qualifications for writing, Barrett, being an economics professor at Trinity College, is much more qualified to comment on qualities of business models and McGinn is much more capable of capturing the consumer perspective. After reviewing the author’s profiles it makes sense that Barrett would give the reader tremendous amounts of facts in his article and then comment on whether or not what Ryanair is doing is a good business decision, purely from an economic stand point.

McGinn, being a reporter and have some knowledge on the economics behind the Ryanair model, would choose to comment only on quotes from customers and employees of Ryanair. While these authors are writing to different audiences there are still some facts about Ryanair that are included in both articles. Both the Newsweek and the Transportation Journal articles comment on Ryanair’s extensive use of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft. They both mention how versatile an aircraft it is and how it is able to hold a large amount of passengers. Any Way to Run” goes into more depth about what it means to the consumer to have an aircraft that can hold more passengers. “Ryanair Model” on the other hand goes more in depth about how Ryanair was able to negotiate with Boeing to purchase these aircraft as cheap as they did. One of the most visible and, aside from tone, the most noticeable to the viewer is length of the article. Length is one of the main deciding factors in how much credibility is received by an article, academic or general.

The length directly correlates to how many sources are cited within the article and how much information is available. “Ryanair Model” is much longer than “Any Way to Run” because academic articles need many more sources to sustain their credibility in the academic world. In “Ryanair Model” most of the length is taken up with facts and statistics about Ryanair and its competitors while opinions make up most of the “Any Way to Run” article. Action Statement: After an in depth analysis and comparison of this academic and magazine article we have realized the different intended uses for each article.

From this point forward we will also keep in mind, when reading magazine articles, that they are meant to be appealing to the reader and not necessarily include all the facts about the topic. For academic articles we learned that we may not necessarily understand all the content unless we are well versed in the field that the article is written for. Going forward, if we need an in depth analysis of a specific subject we will research and use academic journals. If we need more of an overview of a topic we will use magazine articles.