Some very passionate debate here on this topic. There clearly is a general concern that FR will cannibalise the business for itself and squeeze easyJet out. While I agree Ryanair is a fierce competitor, Belfast in my view will be very different to what happened when the 2 have competed heavily at various airports like Madrid, Shannon, Cork, Knock where easyJet pulled out, closed bases or cut routes respectively.
In areas where easyJet has a core market ie in GB it has held firm against Ryanair. Airports like Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow and Edinburgh the two compete toe to toe and in many of these easyJet is the larger carrier and on many of the routes has la bigger operation. These are all home grown markets for easyJet, ie not like STN that EasyJet had inherited from an acquisition. STN from what I can see is not the same, though just as FR have put it up to them on domestics, easyJet has so far held firm.
Despite all of this, Ryanair have become a much more rigorous competitor to easyJet in the last two years than hitherto opening up bases at the same airports as easyJet like at Malpensa, Fiumincino etc. And of course adding routes like STN EDI, STN GLA and now BFS LGW. EasyJet no longer can run, they cannot continue to defer capacity away to more attractive markets, Vueling are everywhere, and the cosy niches that EasyJet has persued at large hubs competing with the legacy carriers are now Ryanair's bread and butter too.
So put simply, whether Ryanair fly to Belfast or not the airports here are not isolated from all of these competitive challenges that are outlined in this thread. EasyJet has to compete, it has to have a model that can compete with Ryanair, it cannot simply cut and run, otherwise it will not be sustainable , so sadly eventually easyJet will have to address is cost base to compete with Ryanair unless it has another formula up its slieve to compete, but I can't see it. There are more similarities than there are differences between the two airlines. This last sentence alone will be debated and it is a debate worthy of its own thread, but Ryanair had improved greatly, it even will remove is gaudy yellow cabin look, which have a sense of crampedness, this and the always getting better program have from what I've seen transformed the airline.
Let's also not forget that Ryanair has an eye watering order book, so they will just grow and grow. They'll be almost everywhere, they are even pursuing slots at airports like CDG, ORY, airports they said they'd never touch. So for me it is clear that easyJet needs to stand is ground...