Ryanair's Problem

For most who ever flew with RyanAir in Germany....the formula for success was simple.  They had airports in the middle of nowhere which were begging for business, and RyanAir said fine, but you need to cut taxes for flights.  So deals were made.

What you'd be offered was a Hahn-to-Ciampino flight.  Hahn was a retired US military base which was converted over to civilian usage.  Great potential but it's an hour's drive west of Frankfurt.  Ciampino?  It's the old major airport of Rome.  For business, it made sense to use both.

So you'd go to the RyanAir page and work up the cost.  If you did this six months out....you'd find the flight down to be around 19 Euro, and the flight back (especially on a Sunday) to be around 100 Euro. If you flipped the return flight to Monday?  You might see the return flight drop to around 60 Euro. 

Planning just two weeks away?  The combined cost would have been closer to 160 Euro (almost the normal cost with regular airlines) for Frankfurt to Rome. 

Most would describe the RyanAir situation with some reservations.  They'd charge you for any extra service.  If you just wanted a simple flight and no extras....it made sense.  The chief problem was that you had a limited number of flight locations.  From Hahn, there were roughly a dozen places in Europe that you could fly into. 

For a number of years, it was obvious that the aircrews were disenchanted with RyanAir and their salary structure.  Strikes never occurred...mostly because they arranged things with 'rented' pilots or contracted pilots....to avoid unions. 

So I come to the 2017 problem with RyanAir.  About four months ago, they announced a huge cut on flights for the fall and winter.  They actually had thousands signed up and had to go and refund their money.  Reason?  They spoke to mandated off-time and vacations by pilots.  It's been seen by some as a weak reason and some disbelief exists.

Oddly, in the past year or two....with some airlines expanding and retirements with pilots occurring....there's a shortage of pilots noted around the world (not just Europe), and so I'm taking a guess that some of RyanAir's pilots just came up and gave notice.  Maybe more than just a few, and it's put RyanAir into a difficult planning stage. 

This week, the CEO for the airline talked about more pay for the pilots.  Course, this would mean some ticket increases in the future.  All of this puts the old business plan of RyanAir into a new prospective.  They convinced Frankfurt's airport to give them a number of spots at the new terminal being built.  If the ticket prices move up....to the level where they are almost equal to the regular airlines?  Then why fly RyanAir?

It's an airline that was built for discount travelers....which made sense in the 1990s.  Today?  There's competition and I have doubts that RyanAir can still be an attraction for travelers.