Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
easyJet had this sorted out literally years ago. UK based aircraft remained G- whereas a new EU based AOC was set up in Austria. Ryanair UK could have had the bulk of the UK based fleet allocated in the same way, it would have some impact on the ability to base aircraft all around Europe but the market has changed and the operator should have recognised this and adapted.
Note that easyJet has moved the bulk of the fleet
away from the UK AOC/G-reg. It would be silly for any airline operating in Europe to have even a single aircraft more than absolutely neccessary registered in the UK, as it limits the scope of operation quite a bit. For example, you can forget about flying W patterns with intra-EU legs with a G-reg/UK AOC.
The question for Ryanair is, whether the profit margin on those 13 (possibly more or less in the future) warrants moving some aircraft to G-reg and accepting the limitations related to that.