Approximately what proportion of the year does a 737 in the Ryanair fleet spend unavailable for commercial use ?

By this, I mean time spent undergoing any form of maintenance or any other time when flying passengers is not possible. I count time spent on the ground on a Wednesday in late January not undergoing maintenance as being available for commercial use.

In particular, I'm interested to know what proportion of the year a FR 737 spends on the ground when it's neither being used for flying passengers for profit nor undergoing any kind of inspection / maintenance or other commercially useful duties. This number is probably rather more important when judging FR's capacity to make optimal use of its fleet rather than just time in the air. Presumably it's better to have an aircraft doing naff all in January, than grounded for maintenance in July...

To some extent, yes. But it's already blown out of proportion. The number of idle planes grow every year. Too simple business model being even harder to sustain in the future?

Eh !

Given that the majority of airlines lose money in the winter period then why run it such that you lose even more money.

Admitting that you take direct action to ensure you don't lose millions in winter sounds just like good management.

The rotation of aircraft means that you don't just park up 100 and wait until spring time but as you said you carry out any maintenance and constantly rotate in and out so that every one of them gets used.

Given the recession within EU at the moment it makes sense to take capacity out of the system rather than aiming for fleet maximisation.

If Ryanair turn out to order the C919 (or Irkut for that mater) will it start a trend of ordering (cheaper than Airbus or Boeing) Eastern aircraft

Anyone know when the FR routes from MAN are likely to be finalised and if so what if any new routes are in the pipeline. Looks like italy and spain routes are bookable but I would be interested to know if there are any to be dropped and any replacements, new routes etc. Thanks DomyDom

Ryanair biggest airline in Hungary, Lithuania, Spain and Slovakia; close second in Belgium, Ireland and Italy | anna.aero

Interesting that while majority of people on this board still believe Ryanair is Ireland / UK focus the company has different perspective and continues to target its growth elsewhere.

DomyDom - you're turning into a bit of a stuck record with ths. The schedule will be rolled out over the next weeks and will be subject to many iterations before it starts March. What is it you are so desparate to know ?

A little shocked how low FR are in the UK with all the aircraft based here it shows very little compared to the likes of Poland, Spain etc.

Pity for Slovakia, as Ryanair flies only some 10 routes solely to Bratislava and still has 2/3 of entire capacity in spite of that. What does it mean? Looks like a kind of deserted territory with BTS new airport terminal so close to Vienna. Yeah, probably FR is just waiting for more marketing support, but I guess "Vienna East" could profitable serve many more routes even without alms.
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SkyEurope ceased flying in autumn 2009. Why would additional marketing support be forthcoming at Bratislava now ? For the last 3 years, FR have been the dominant airline at BTS. Ignore flights to Israel and Russia, and FR become even more dominant at BTS.

J636 -

FR have a smaller share in UK because they have a number of major competitors here: EZY, BA, FlyBe, Jet2, Monarch, Virgin & BMI until recently.

Slovakia
 

@davidjohnson6

Do not ask me, I don't live there. However the country has a population of 5 million, Bratislava appr. 500.000 while BTS airport is located just 88 km from the very center of Vienna, pop. 1,7 million. During November Ryanair will perform less than 40 flights per week to BTS, being dominant airline in the country. Something went wrong.

I do not blame Ryanair, but cannot imagine there are no opportunities there.

As indicated Bratislava is biggest population centre with 500,000, next is Kosice with half that number.............population is very spread out and I guess propensity to travel is low.

In 2011 Bratislava had 1.666 Million passengers and Kosice 267k..........market is small at present moment.

When you 'ground' the Boeings, you don't have to pay the 'contract' pilots.

^^ Or instead of luring Austrians to fly from Bratislava, Slovaks fly from Vienna.

Yes but they have around 40 based at STN and most other bases are 4-6 aircraft. A rought guess would be 70-75 aircraft based in UK which is probaly more than Jet 2, Flybe, Monarch but far behind EZY.

And even less than BA. in many EU states quite often the legacy carriers are more convenient, and in the total cost of travel to/from + parking + baggage, + + + , are cheaper. The Locos are not always the best value. Caveat Emptor.

North West,
Sorry for coming across as a broken record but I would like to plan travel arrangements for next summer. To answer your question I would be interested to know if there are any new routes planned from Manchester for next summer and if so what are they.

Basically I book flights depending on what flights are available, whether I like the look of the place, if I haven't been before or if it looks like an interesting destination etc. For example I'm currently planning to go to Bilbao with Easyjet from Manchester but if Oporto came up with Ryanair from the same airport for summer 2013 I may change my plans.

In short I am interested in whether there are likely to be any new routes from Manchester and if so what are they. If there are then please can you pass on any information that you may have regarding any new destinations. I'm not desparate but I am interested.

Sorry for being interested..... I suppose we can always go back to discussing whether it should be an 'E' or an 'e' in eayjet etc.. Hopefully you understand where I'm coming from.:)

No NYO-BCN summer 2013?
 

As I have a second home in the south of Catalonia I am always looking for flights from Stockholm Skavsta to the Barcelona/Valencia area. I usually book quite some time in advance and have been waiting for the schedule of summer 2013 to be loaded.
Now most part of the schedules seems to be loaded but so far there are no flights to Barcelona from Skavsta although both Alicante and Palma de Mallorca have flights loaded. Also there are flights from Barcelona to London Stansted...

Jamie2k9 (or anyone else), do you have any more information? Negotiations with the Generalitat again? A bit strange is also the appearance of Valencia in the drop down menus from Stockholm Skavsta again. Cancelled route since 2009 I believe, and other cancelled routes are not shown.