Ryanair was founded in 1984 by the Ryan family.
At first, because of regulations, it was only flying in the UK and Ireland, until in 1997, airlines were allowed to fly freely throughout Europe.
Back then, flying was expensive, and considered a privilege. While all the European airlines started competing with one another, offering even more luxurious services and raising their prices, Ryanair went the other way and decided to focus on dropping its prices.
Key elements of Ryanair’s strategy to reduce costs:
- Flying to cheap airports as opposed to main, more expensive ones
- Purchasing planes of the same make, such as Boeing 737s, therefore reducing maintenance costs
- Charging for everything extra (food, luggages, etc)
- Getting rid of travel agents who would charge commission on top of Ryanair’s fares
That last element is very important: in 2000, they launched Europe’s largest booking website of Europe: for the first time, travellers were able to purchase their own ticket, without extra cost. Within 3 months, over 50.000 bookings per week were made through the website.
This website was created by John Beckett, a 17 year-old, for less than 20k. At the time, Michael O’Leary had been quoted millions by other companies; using the words of Eddie Wilson, “this kid [was] a low-cost option”.*
The website was horrendous, its main goal being making it as easy as possible for users to book. For that, they used a flashing call of action “BOOK NOW” on the top left corner, impossible to miss. Eoghan Corry, editor Travel Extra, said it was an “ugly website to persuade customers to buy something quickly and get off the site”.*
With this website, they were hoping to get 30% of their bookings online, but instead got 90% within a few months.*
All the users agreed: it didn’t matter how long it took to book a flight, or how many clicks, you kept going because of the insanely cheap price.*
Ryanair was back then the only source of lowest airfares in Europe.
It was named the most popular airline on the web for 2003 by Google. It was indeed the most searched travel website in Europe.
With its low prices, Ryanair pushed its competitors to drop their prices in order to remain competitive, but even so, it was still the company offering the cheapest flights.
Nowadays, Ryanair carries over 130m customers on more than 2000 daily flights. Even though the service onboard isn’t the best, you get what you paid for.
And even though we all complain about it, we always return to it.
I’ll leave you with a brilliant video by Foil Arms and Hog that sums up all of our feelings towards Ryanair:
*info taken from RTE Documentary – Ryanair, How It Revolutionised Air Travel
My Journey in Web Design 