You'll need less in your sporran than ever!!

[sgt.culpepper]

Battle is definitly joined as FR have just announced entry on the DUB/Edinburgh route in a direct challenge to "GO" who only last week announced their arrival on the same route.Not only that but the bold( and sometimes very bold) MOL is starting the service !! three weeks ahead of BC. With prices about to tumble, seems like you'll need less in your sporran than ever.The fun is about to start but watch out it could all turn nasty. ;)

[Mooney]

GO are offering flights return for 20 Pounds inc Taxes, On EVERY seat.

Ryanair 29.99 :eek:

[newswatcher]

Mooney,

GO's offer of £20 is limited to 30 days, following which it will increase to £45 inc tax.

[brabazon]

This is where it all gets very serious.

Late Summer/early Autumn 2001 is going to see the first real direct head-head competition between the "low fare" airlines, operating on the same airport pairs*. In these cases its go vs easyJet on BFS to EDI/GLA and go vs Ryanair on DUB - GLA (*ok FR go into PIK in this case) and now EDI.

One could ask why given the number of potential routes that could be served these airlines insist on picking a fight with each other? Is the potential market on these routes that big or are egos at stake.

Certainly, go's decision to enter Ryanair territory is surprising - MOL doesn't suffer competition lightly and his comments and actions yesterday in announcing their new route from DUB-EDI shows it. How low can the fare war go? MOL did put forward the zero fare option a few weeks ago. I'm sure we'll be down to a few pounds (UK or Irish) soon.

So how long will go stay in the DUB market? Who's got deeper pockets and more staying power? How long will 3i put up with the Ryanair effect?

[ 13 July 2001: Message edited by: brabazon ]

[Bluehair]

This is something of a foolish move by GO. I hope they do well out of it but FR has *deep* pockets and can sustain this battle a long time.

Much better if GO had opened routes to AGP and BCN ex DUB against the majors.

[The Guvnor]

From today's Business am:

Ryanair leaves Go’s Dublin-Edinburgh plans on the runway
by Richard Allan

Published: 00:05, Jul 13, 2001

RYANAIR has set the scene for a new round in Scotland’s low-fare airline war by announcing services between Edinburgh and Dublin from August.

Go announced a similar service last week and Ryanair has thwarted the former BA subsidiary’s plan to be the first low-cost carrier to fly between Edinburgh and Dublin.

Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair chief executive, took the decision to start an Edinburgh service last weekend – four days after Go said it would begin four flights per weekday on the route from 19 September.

Ryanair will operate the same number of weekday flights between Edinburgh and Dublin from 30 August, with fares between £29.99 and £99.99, including taxes.

Go’s scheduled prices prices range from £45 to £160 but it responded to Ryanair’s announcement by cutting them to £10 one way on all flights between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin for 30 days from the launch. Prices include tax, but a £5 supplement will be charged for telephone bookings.

Mr O’Leary said: “Everybody knows that Ryanair loves competition, and any airline that wants to challenge us in the Dublin or the Irish market must actually sell low fares and not just talk about it.”

Ryanair will also increase services between Prestwick, its sole Scottish base for the past six years, and Dublin, with fourth flights on Fridays and Sundays.

Ryanair’s capacity on the Scotland-Dublin route, where it uses 130-seat 737-200 aircraft, is now about 910 seats each way on weekdays and 1,040 on Fridays and Sundays.

Go will have four flights from Edinburgh and three from Glasgow to Dublin on weekdays, giving it 1,043 seats as it uses a 149-seat aircraft.

Aer Lingus operates four weekday flights between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin.

Kathryn Munro, the sales manager for Ryanair in Scotland, said the market was big enough to justify an Edinburgh service without damaging its Prestwick base.

Summer services from Scotland soar

SEASONAL direct flights from Scotland have increased by nearly 14% in the last year, according to research by Business a.m.

That took the number of daily cross-border flights in the summer timetables of major carriers to 487.

A 57% rise in the number of direct flights by low-cost airlines such as Go, easyJet and Ryanair is largely responsible.

In the past, airlines have tended to argue that demand in Scotland was not great enough to justify more direct services.

But Scottish air travel appears to be following the global trend, with figures yesterday from the airport owner BAA showing Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen passenger numbers up 5.7% in the year to June 2001.

This compared with 4.2% average growth for the company’s seven UK airports.

Go, which claims it is Scotland’s largest low-cost airline, increased its services from six flights per day from Scotland last summer to 31 now, with services to Dublin and to Bristol starting in the autumn.

EasyJet has more than doubled its flights from 13 to 27, with new services to Amsterdam and Northern Ireland beginning later this year.

Ryanair has increased the number of flights from Prestwick to London from six to eight in the past 12 months, with further routes to be added next year.

British Airways remained the largest operator of flights from Scotland. It has kept flight numbers up this year but is using smaller planes on some flights to London.

The frequency of transatlantic services was unchanged.

Alan Hogarth, of CBI Scotland, said: “It’s great news to see the increasing options that are being made available for business travellers.”

[Findo]

And now :-
Ananova :



Air fare price war intensifies as Ryanair offers £5 ticket

An air fare war between Ireland and Scotland has intensified with Ryanair announced a £5 one-way ticket on the Dublin-Glasgow route.

The Irish carrier said the fare would apply to every seat on all of their flights between the two cities for two months from the end of August.

The move marked the second Ryanair response in 24 hours to the entry of Britain's Go low-fares airline into the Irish market last week.

Go disclosed plans to operate from Dublin to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Yesterday Ryanair undercut Go's fare on the Edinburgh route, and today they came up with the Glasgow development.

Kathryn Munro, Ryanair's Scotland sales manager, claimed: "There is only one low-fares airline in Europe. Ryanair's fare is half the price of Go's lowest fare and is available twice as long."

Story filed: 14:01 Friday 13th July 2001

:D

[sgt.culpepper]

Well, as predicted the fun has started in earnest. Its' all very interesting particularly Ryanair's decision to add a new route out of Dublin which represents a complete u turn from their oft' stated position of no new routes until they get a low low charges deal from the airport operator.Also Edinburgh is not a secondary airport a la some of Ryanairs' other offerings and probably charges a lot more than say Prestwick. Will Prestwick be the loser at the end of the day.
I agree with "Bluehair" why not DUB/ AGP or BCN .
Another point, at what stage does this madness become predatory pricing and get referred to the Competition Authority? Would Aer Lingus have a case for referral?

[Deeko01]

Be interesting to see how it works out between Rangers and celtic supporters travelling over for an old-firm match, at the moment both sets of fans are only allowed to travel with 1 fery company, P+O (Gers), Stena (Tic).

I guess the logical answer is Rangers fans travel with Easyjet coz its Orange!, and Celtic fans travel with GO and Aer Lingus!

:eek:

[CaptSensible]

Yes sgt.culpepper, I wondering if anyone would see the irony of all this gleeful hand-rubbing.

Over the years, when other companies opened competing services on Aer Lingus' routes, or even if Aer Lingus opened a new route (e.g. LCY) the howls of anger were deafening.

The cry went up..."How dare a company like ALT use it's competitive muscle to fare dump on some poor souls just trying to make a buck and provide some options to the punter!"

Well, here we are, the names are different but the scenario is exactly the same...and the hyposcrisy is breathtaking.
Those who once avowed the protectionist philosophy toward the smaller companies are now baying for the blood of poor little GO.

Basically the rule seems to be...it's an open market...just as long as Aer Lingus isn't in the equation.

I'm sure the culprits will spend the next few posts trying to explain to me how this is different and how I've misread them...but sorry guys, too late, your mask just slipped.

[Bagheera]

All I want to know is with new services to Dublin x 2,Belfast,Bristol and even a possible Newark...where the heck are we going to park them?!

[The Guvnor]

Just wait for FR's famous 50p fares... :D :D :D

From today's Scotsman...

£5 to Dublin as air fares war grows
Alastair Jamieson and Alastair Dalton

THE air fares war on routes between Scotland and Ireland intensified last night, as Ryanair cut the price of tickets between Glasgow and Dublin to just £5.

The move by the budget airline follows the announcement earlier this week that its rival, Go, would offer flights between Edinburgh or Glasgow and Dublin for £10.

Both airlines will start flying on the routes at the end of the summer. It is the first time Ryanair has competed directly with another low cost airline on an identical route.

The price war comes as a record number of people fly out of Glasgow airport at the start of the Glasgow Fair.

As many as 115,000 are expected to join the exodus - 3 per cent more than last year.

The Ryanair offer will apply to all seats during the first two months of its Edinburgh-Dublin service. The route was announced on Thursday to take on Go’s new service, unveiled last week . Kathryn Munro, Ryanair’s Scotland sales manager, said of its £5 offer: "There is only one low-fares airline in Europe. Ryanair’s fare is half the price of Go’s lowest fare and is available twice as long."
However, Barbara Cassani, chief executive of Go, said:
"Ryanair could have offered low fares to travellers between Dublin and Scotland years ago, but they didn’t.
"Instead, they chose to cynically charge people fares up to £239."

[Bluehair]

I see Ryanairs share price has droppd a bit as the city reacts to news of the share war.

This is not a smart thing for Ryanair to be doing. Europe still has *far* too many available routes for the low-fare carriers to be at each others throats yet.

EI will suffer most on the route but i reckon GO would be smart to pull off before any damage is done and focus on a route where it can really cream it it; e.g. dub-bcn against Iberia.