FR @ Kerry
Kerry is an example of Ryanair's (perhaps understandable) Irish-centric view of the world. Would they bother flying there if it were not in Ireland?
For those that have any interest in such things, here are the passenger figures and flown load factors for Ryanair's Kerry routes (assuming B738 on all flights). The usual comments about loads and yields apply.
STN - KIR used by at least 140k pax every year since 2004:
2005 147k pax, 68%
2006 149k pax, 73%
2007 156k pax, 74%
2008 68k pax, 65% (Jan - Jun)
LTN - KIR had a very weak first winter:
2007 3k pax, 42%
2008 17k pax, 57% (Jan - Jun)
LPL - KIR - a bit of a dog
2006-7 18k pax, 53% (Jun 06 to Jan 07)
HHN - KIR - perhaps the most impressive of the lot, especially as critics might describe it as a flight from a field in the middle of nowhere to a field in the middle of nowhere. Seemed to suffer in 2005/6 when HHN-SNN was increased to 3 / 4 times weekly, before being dropped. These days HHN-KIR is daily in Summer and 4x weekly in the Winter.
2004 105k pax, 77%
2005 100k pax, 74%
2006 90k pax, 71%
2007 86k pax, 77%
I presume that now the HHN-KIR route is operated by a KIR based aircraft, this will allow the new route when HHN is reduced for the Winter.
Ryanair will need to be careful with their choice of route - their experiences with HHN to KIR and SNN suggest that they could easily damage existing routes out of Shannon (which wouldn't take much). For this reason, Weeze NRN might not be a great idea. There were rumours about Reus or Rome, but the latter seems unlikely given the slot availability at Rome CIA and the fact that they couldn't make it work from Shannon.