RYR chases business pax

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/oneinfour-suits-slumming-it-as-ryanair-chases-business-3375727.html

Up to a quarter of customers on low-cost carrier Ryanair are now "business" passengers as the suits start 'slumming it' for cheaper fares.
The airline now estimates that between 20 and 25 per cent of all of its passengers are corporate or business fliers.
Ryanair has been targeting business fliers since it introduced pre-booked seating on all its routes last January.

The frequency of Ryanair's flights has also been a major draw. "We currently operate approximately 22 flights a day between Dublin and London, the busiest international route in Europe, with an estimated similar proportion of business passengers travelling," Ryanair told the Sunday Independent.
"It's a combination of low fares in a recession where businesses are increasingly saying everyone must travel at low fares," and the "breakdown of business class as a product," O'Leary said in Lithuania last week.

Ryanair and fellow low-cost carriers such as Easyjet have gone after the business market with a variety of new measures ranging from introducing a €10 reserved seating charge to flexible tickets and corporate booking agents. Full service carriers have also upped their game with better menus and more spacious seating.

As a business flyer myself I would have some choice as to how I fly and who I fly with. Currently back and forward between London and Warsaw and choosing Ryanair not on price but because it is NOT running from Heathrow... Certainly a lot of the business people that I speak to at Stansted going places on Ryanair are doing so because LHR (and LGW) are painful. From lots of North London through to East Anglia, including Cambridge / Ipswich etc Stansted is much better.

Were the prices the same and the schedules the same I'd choose Ryanair over BA from London to Warsaw; Stansted takes me 40 minutes, Heathrow takes me two hours. If BA operated from Stansted then that might be a different thing (though I've flown so much with Ryanair in recent years I have no status with BA any more!).

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ryanair-has-so-many-business-travelers-2013-2?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider%2Fthelife+%28The+Life%29

Why are 17.5 million suits flying with Ryanair every year? One reason is that companies are unwilling to splash out on business-class seats in the current economic climate.

Another reason is the retrenchment of full-service carriers on short-haul routes. The advent of low-cost carriers in the 1990s forced Europe's older airlines to reappraise their business models. Although legacy carriers have had some success in improving their cost structures—by renegotiating union agreements and experimenting with ancillary charges, for example—progress is stymied by their full-service proposition.

On short-haul, most of us are willing to slum it for an hour or two if it means a cheaper airfare. Full-service carriers have effectively been priced out of the market.

This bodes well for Ryanair, but Mr O'Leary cannot rest on his laurels. Europe's other low-cost carriers are experimenting with new ways of attracting business passengers. EasyJet says it promotes "business sense, not business class".

So far, though, Ryanair's only foray into premium service has been reserved seating. It will be interesting to see whether this changes.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ryanair-has-so-many-business-travelers-2013-2#ixzz2MHpnIoig