Ryanair made a substantial profit when pretty much rest of the industry was losing money.
On the face of it's that's damned impressive. My question is to sustainability and just how much of Ryanair is underpinned by dimwit regional politicians p***ing someone elses money up a wall at Ryanair.
Look at Prestwick's new maintenance hangar. Basically the Scottish Government is bribing M'OL with my own money (!) When you're playing that kinda gane in the free market you gotta start asking soime serious questions.
Look at where Ryanair have been for a while and what's happening. I think the market is self correcting.
Dublin - mature market - little growth - "government's fault / DAA's fault"
Shannon - dumped - DAA's fault
Stansted - no growth - mature market - BAA's Fault / HMG's fault
Bournemouth - semi dumped
Manchester - mature market - wouldn't lube up for the Ryanair lovin' - semi-dumped -MAN PLC's fault
There's a pattern storing up trouble if you look close enough. The much vaunted economic benefits of Ryanair are just
PR claptrap.
Look at Prestwick - reduced to bucket n spade traffic that GLA had years ago - city routes dumped.
Taking the UK and Ireland as a whole, we're caring less and less as the bluster has less and less impact on each iteration.
How much money do the above airports make out of Ryanair? Answer - virtually NONE. They have to allow the likes of WHSmith to charge the punters £££s for the basics once trapped airside to make back the money they lose on Ryanair ops. This is proving to be a sound business model for today but as to sustainable? I doubt that very much.