Ryanair opens doors for competitors

It is worth considering whether Ryanair might have become the victim of its own success. It is an exaggeration – but not a massive one – to say that the low-cost pioneer has changed the face of European civil aviation.

Over the past couple of decades it has driven down the price of airport charges across Europe and many of its competitors into bankruptcy in the process, particularly those of the high-cost national carrier variety.

It has also spawned many imitators, some of which it managed to strangle at birth but others of which have thrived and prospered on the back of its labours.

The big winners – think EasyJet – are those that have benefited from the downward pressure on airport charges at major airports and the availability of landing slots that came about as a result of the relentless pursuit by Ryanair of its strategy, focused – until recently – on flying to regional airports and targeting incumbent carriers flying to the more expensive national airports.

The airline’s recent Pauline conversion to being nice to its customers and flying into national airports is no doubt the combination of a number of factors. One of them is without a doubt the fact that national airports are now offering packages that are consistent with the low-cost model as they seek to fill slots vacated by national carriers, such as Alitalia, beaten into submission by Ryanair.

Ryanair can take the lion’s share of the credit for this turn of events but would appear to have missed a trick in not seeing how it was inadvertently opening a door for its competitors to walk through ahead of them.

It has now woken up to this threat and is responding.

It will be interesting to see how things develop and what direction airport charges at national airports take from here.