The
independent.ie writes today:
While Ryanair naturally blamed Boeing, accusing it of failing to meet unspecified delivery conditions, for the rupture, no one seems to be asking the obvious question. How on earth was Ryanair going to fill another 200 aircraft?
Ryanair has grown passenger numbers by 20 per cent a year for almost a decade. In the year to March 2010, Ryanair will carry 70 million passengers. In terms of passenger numbers carried, Michael O'Leary's outfit is now the largest airline in Europe.
Now that it is operating off such a high base it becomes more and more difficult for Ryanair to maintain these growth rates. Even before the recession decimated the demand for cheap, discretionary travel it was clear that Ryanair's growth rates would have to slow. Otherwise it would be carrying something like 175 million passengers by 2015 and 435 million by 2020.
Quite clearly that's not going to happen. Otherwise everyone in Europe would end up spending every waking hour either airborne or at the airport -- a truly terrifying thought.
The evidence of overcapacity is growing. And other problems emerging as well.
The less Ryanair are willing to pay the airports they use, the more likely emerge problems with their maintenance and development. Like in Germany, where the carrier could soon lose a couple of its destinations (Lubeck, Altenburg), no-one wants to pay to keep the places open for them.
The more marketing support FR demand for its routes, the more prone they are to reactions
like that in France:
Ryanair fait du chantage avec les aéroports français.
Le chantage aux subventions et aux baisses des taxes aéroportuaires est devenu une pratique courante de la compagnie aérienne à bas prix Ryanair. La compagnie aérienne irlandaise s'installe dans des aéroports secondaires moyennant certains avantages financiers puis menace ensuite de se retirer si ceux-ci n'acceptent pas les nouvelles conditions imposées par Ryanair.
Ryanair is blackmailing French airports.
Blackmailing to get subsidies and tax cuts at airports has become a common practice for Ryanair. After being granted certain financial benefits the Irish airline installs itself into secondary airports and then threatens to withdraw if some new conditions imposed by Ryanair are not accepted.
As an example, the article mentions the Poitiers and Angouleme airports. The latter one has signed a 5-year contract with FR to operate between 2008 and 2012 and the agreement stipulated that the airline would receive €400.000 in 2008, 300.000 in 2009 and 225 000 in 2010. Now Ryanair wants 175.000 more, the economic crisis as a pretext. So far the Charente Departament's Chamber of Commerce didn't agree. Last days of Ryanair in Angouleme, presumably?
Not only in France, similar problems emerge for example in Poland. Bydgoszcz has been promised a few new routes to be announced very soon. However, the marketing support has not been granted by the City Council. Regardless of other routes' profitability, FR threatens to withdraw completely from the entire BZG, unless ongoing negotiations bring a solution to this dispute.