meanwhile in Dublin the pile it high sell it cheap policy has seen them become the biggest airline by passenger numbers in Europe and very cash rich.
Passenger numbers may be one thing and lower labour costs another, however this this misses the inherent weakness in the Ryan Air strategy.
Fond of borrowing from Southwest, Ryan Air never noticed that Herb Kelleher said:
"You can have the highest revenue airline, or the lowest cost airline and still goes broke. Neither matters on its own, it is the gap between the two that matters." (Paraphrased)
As such the inherent weakness in the low fare model is that yield is low and difficult to find, thus the focus on cost. Whilst axiomatically their labour cost is lower, their margins are narrow.
All those passengers rapidly disappear when only paying pennies for a flight, 'patrons' are price loyal only. After all as demonstrated repeatedly, their customer service is hardly leading the industry. Ryan Air need persistent high Load factors otherwise that cash you speak of rapidly evaporates.
Europe is littered with Low Fare Airline failures.
Ryan Air is vulnerable.