OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Ryanair’s plans take flight in Frankfurt

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN — Ryanair is invading Germany to take on the national flag carrier, Lufthansa, with a range of new low-cost fares and has also raised the stakes in the battle about charges at Dublin Airport.

The company has slammed Aer Rianta, Ireland’s airports authority, in full-page advertisements for losing the business that is going to a new hub it is opening at Hahn airport, about 60 miles west of Frankfurt in the heart of Germany.

With bases in Dublin, London Stansted and Brussels Charleroi, the company is riding high despite the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the U.S.

Chief executive Michael O’Leary said Ryanair’s fares would offer German consumers savings of over 80 percent “on the ridiculously high one-way fares being charged by Lufthansa.”

Now Europe’s biggest low-fares airline, Ryanair is planning to grab business from large national carriers that have been seriously hit by the collapse in air travel.

Never miss an issue of The Irish Echo

Subscribe to one of our great value packages.

Ryanair plans to operate more than 30 flights daily from Frankfurt to Italy, Britain, France, Ireland and Norway.

It claims the seven new routes, 200 jobs and 1.5 million new passengers are going to the German operation because costs are much lower and facilities much better than at Dublin Airport.

O’Leary is still battling to be allowed to build a terminal at Dublin. He says he will hand it to the government as long as Aer Rianta doesn’t get it.

“This is the fourth year in a row that Ryanair have been forced to grow outside Ireland because Dublin Airport is ridiculously expensive, and a mess,” O’Leary said. “It is time that the government introduced competition to the Aer Rianta monopoly. Let Ryanair build a second terminal. New routes will follow, prices will fall and services will improve.

“Irish tourism is facing disaster in 2002. Ryanair has a plan to rescue it. Aer Rianta has no plan at all.”

The broadside from the airline comes as the government awaits a response from the airport authority about an interdepartmental recommendation to development a more aggressive strategy to attract low-fares airlines.

It also wants Aer Rianta to develop a new facility, Pier D, at the Dublin Airport by spring 2003. It would be a “low cost facility targeting low cost carriers.” Aer Rianta already has planning permission for the development.

Ryanair now has 63 low-fare routes across 12 countries and plans an expansion that will more than double the fleet of 36 planes it is operating and another 13 on order.

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese