From today's Business am:
Ryanair leaves Go’s Dublin-Edinburgh plans on the runway
by Richard Allan
Published: 00:05, Jul 13, 2001
RYANAIR has set the scene for a new round in Scotland’s low-fare airline war by announcing services between Edinburgh and Dublin from August.
Go announced a similar service last week and Ryanair has thwarted the former BA subsidiary’s plan to be the first low-cost carrier to fly between Edinburgh and Dublin.
Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair chief executive, took the decision to start an Edinburgh service last weekend – four days after Go said it would begin four flights per weekday on the route from 19 September.
Ryanair will operate the same number of weekday flights between Edinburgh and Dublin from 30 August, with fares between £29.99 and £99.99, including taxes.
Go’s scheduled prices prices range from £45 to £160 but it responded to Ryanair’s announcement by cutting them to £10 one way on all flights between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin for 30 days from the launch. Prices include tax, but a £5 supplement will be charged for telephone bookings.
Mr O’Leary said: “Everybody knows that Ryanair loves competition, and any airline that wants to challenge us in the Dublin or the Irish market must actually sell low fares and not just talk about it.”
Ryanair will also increase services between Prestwick, its sole Scottish base for the past six years, and Dublin, with fourth flights on Fridays and Sundays.
Ryanair’s capacity on the Scotland-Dublin route, where it uses 130-seat 737-200 aircraft, is now about 910 seats each way on weekdays and 1,040 on Fridays and Sundays.
Go will have four flights from Edinburgh and three from Glasgow to Dublin on weekdays, giving it 1,043 seats as it uses a 149-seat aircraft.
Aer Lingus operates four weekday flights between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin.
Kathryn Munro, the sales manager for Ryanair in Scotland, said the market was big enough to justify an Edinburgh service without damaging its Prestwick base.
Summer services from Scotland soar
SEASONAL direct flights from Scotland have increased by nearly 14% in the last year, according to research by Business a.m.
That took the number of daily cross-border flights in the summer timetables of major carriers to 487.
A 57% rise in the number of direct flights by low-cost airlines such as Go, easyJet and Ryanair is largely responsible.
In the past, airlines have tended to argue that demand in Scotland was not great enough to justify more direct services.
But Scottish air travel appears to be following the global trend, with figures yesterday from the airport owner BAA showing Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen passenger numbers up 5.7% in the year to June 2001.
This compared with 4.2% average growth for the company’s seven UK airports.
Go, which claims it is Scotland’s largest low-cost airline, increased its services from six flights per day from Scotland last summer to 31 now, with services to Dublin and to Bristol starting in the autumn.
EasyJet has more than doubled its flights from 13 to 27, with new services to Amsterdam and Northern Ireland beginning later this year.
Ryanair has increased the number of flights from Prestwick to London from six to eight in the past 12 months, with further routes to be added next year.
British Airways remained the largest operator of flights from Scotland. It has kept flight numbers up this year but is using smaller planes on some flights to London.
The frequency of transatlantic services was unchanged.
Alan Hogarth, of CBI Scotland, said: “It’s great news to see the increasing options that are being made available for business travellers.”