With regard to comments that Ryanair will never consider another type I would strongly disagree. Many would say it is conventional thinking that loco's typically dont operate more than 1 type. However, in these times the rules book is out the window. No other LOCO at the scale of Ryanair operate a complete fleet of 189 seats, eg Southwest who have variety of variants, Easyjet also who have a mix of sizes of airbus.
What would be to stop Ryanair from setting up a separate entity operating say C series, or another 100 seat aircraft. This would allow Ryanair to profitably compete with companies such as Flybe or Aer Arann (yes Ryanair can compete with these but on thinner routes they will lose money when faced with multi daily frequencies) eg Cork Dublin.
A separate entity which if it had the operational flexibility in the areas of Staff cost and flexibility, low cost in terms of airport deals, and the same focus on cost base as Ryanair, use of the existing Ryanair systems for IT reservations, offices and management combined with a strong deal on aircraft cost eg big deal for C Series, Embraer etc would mean effectively they could open up a whole new market for themselves that hitherto they could not operate at an adequate return.
Any level of success on short routes by Aer Lingus Regional may be an additional motivator as succeeding on some of the existing routes may drive Ryanair to come up with a smaller type to compete more effectively.
Eg of Routes where good passenger numbers existed but were not sustainable due to 738 being too big;
Blackpool- London Stansted (100k pax per annum)
Prestwick- Belfast City (not sustainable at x2 daily on 738)
Prestwick- London Stansted (rumoured to be being axed) (some months in excess of 25k passnegers?)
Dublin - many UK regional routes were axed for various reasons
eg Dublin Humberside ... not sustainable yet loads of 50%, would smaller type make the yield management sys more sustainable?
Dublin Cardiff... a dispute with the airport about fees but big part of the issue was the profitability of the route 738 too big
there are many many examples.
How many extra passengers could Ryanair deliver per annum profitably on a smaller type?
EI-BUD