SWOT analysis of Ryanair

Challenges and recommendations for the future. References. Backgrounders subject of this report is Ryan – the first Low Cost Carrier in Europe – which was founded in 1985 (Ryan. Com History 2008). The firm began operations with a staff of 25 and a single 15-seat airplane flying between Waterfowl and London. In 1986 Ryan received permission to begin flying four flights a day on the Dublin-London route.

In doing so, they challenged the monopoly of British Airways and Are Lingua tit fares that were much lower. Ryan’s strategy was to offer simple, low-cost fairs and exemplary customer service. During the later part of the ass Ryan continued to compete vigorously with British Airways and Are Lingua while adding additional routes and airplanes (Creator 2004). In 1990 Ryan suffered a EYE million loss and was forced to completely restructure. A new CEO – Michael O’Leary – was charged with making the airline profitable.

He visited the USA to study the ‘low fares/no frills’ model being used by Southwest Airlines. O’Leary quickly decided that the key to low Ares was to implement quick turn-around times for aircraft, “no frills”, and no business class, as well as operating a single model of aircraft (Ryan About Us n. D. ). Despite the decline in overall airline traffic, Ryan made a profit of IEEE,OOH for the year and carried 651 ,OOH passengers. In 1997, the EX. Air transport deregulation allowed the airline for the first time to open up new routes to Continental Europe with over 3 million passengers on 18 routes carried.

Ryan launched services to Stockholm, Oslo, Paris and Brussels and started to float Ryan Pl on Dublin and NASDAQ Stock exchanges. In 2000, they announced the launch of 10 new European routes for the summer and the company launched their new online booking site and in Just 3 months the site was taking over 50,000 bookings a week (Ryan About Us n. D. ). After the tragedy of 9/1 1 , the whole air transportation industry suffered a drawback and airline companies had to modify their strategies in order to adapt to the new situation that led to an increase in oil prices and a downturn in traffic (Gloomy Ryan 2008).

Ryan, instead of canceling thousands of flights, adapted the opposite strategy (G TREE – ANALYSIS OF THE EUROPEAN AIR 2001). The company took advantage of empty slots in the airports, which were until the date the biggest constraint in European airports. In 2008 Ryan is the 3rd largest airline in Europe; it has 31 bases and carries 50. 9 million passengers annually (Ryan Annual Results 2008). The firm’s whole story is built on ambitious growth targets. But keeping returns up while deploying ever- increasing quantities of capital is hard to achieve