Ryanair is the airline equivilent of Northern Rock.

It will be more than a few jobs to go.

And start with the senior management,Millerlite...or whoever is paid hundreds of thousands and responsible for not hedging fuel and indirectly costing the company hundreds of millions in a serious error of judgement.

Management and the men or women who make monumental ****ups should be held accountable just like the pilots and cabin crew are if they do so...or more importantly they could start cutting back on the waste of paint(and the cost involved) that they splash across their lovely jets with indignant and degrading remarks.

Or how about the millions spent on their failed bid for Aer lingus and the cost involved with acquiring 29.4% of said company..Or more importantly if the COMPANY stops provoking employees,customers,heads of state .....(fill in as applicable) think of the millions that could be saved in legal fee's...for its well known the best paid employees in ryanair are its lawyers.

Really? Northern Rock was taken over by the UK government. Which government will bail out Ryanair?

Is it that RYR might send pilots to India, or send pilots and a/c. If only pilots, or if he lays off some crews, what's to happen to all those shiny new a/c he has spewing of the Boeing production line? I heard he tried before to delay deliveries and that Boeing said he could delay delivery but not payment.

And what about all those wonder kids arriving by the bus load at the various TRTO's, dolling out their dosh for a type rating. Is that training to be suspended too?

There are much more latent details yet to be revealed. They are all linked
together and dumping a few crews in the sub-continent by itself will not solve anything.

The problem with the Ryanair business model is that it is a variant of an old game played in manufacturing industry. That's the "I will price my product at cost and wait for everyone else to go broke, then I'll raise my prices and clean up" model.

It is a very very dangerous business strategy to have one part of your business cross subsidising another part of it, yet it appears to this simple person that this is exactly what Ryanair has done - selling the flight for next to nothing and then making your profit on all the add-ons and peripheral charges (food, drink, baggage, car hire, etc.).

It's dangerous because such a model is very sensitive to changes in volume, as well as consumers "learning" cheaper behaviour, taking the cheap product and avoiding the expensive "extra's".

It would appear the stock market agrees.

Or there is the old Jewish saying "If you give your product away for free you will have lots of customers."

As expected, more FR bashing. some folk seem to spend their lives looking at yet another angle to have a go. I would suggest that any of you wishing the worst on Ryanair, if you are actualy employed in European aviation, beware!
Ryanair is a massive company, it has huge cash reserves. If things were to go the way some of you are predicting, it would spend its reserves on the long predicted bloodbath. I think many companies would fail and thousands of jobs would be lost before you would see the demise of Ryanair.
Who would be the ones to gain?
Be carefull what you wish for!

BALLSOUT, Ryanair is in comparison to other airlines in a bad position for 2008 because they are one of the few unprotected against $100+ oil, that's why this year will be a difficult for them, own mistake. But that is not what this is about.

Aviation as a whole suffers because the availability of cheap oil is crucial. Over the next years, as hedging contracts expire, all airlines will be facing the reality of expensive oil. There is no sign whatsoever that the price will stabilize at $120, or even $200-$300. And algae oil costs $800 p/b... The airlines that will survive are the ones that manage to change their business models in order to cope with these prices. From roughly $200 oil, low cost air travel will basically stop. The fuel bill will be in the region of 75-80 % of all costs for FR, so any saving will be a drop in the ocean. There will still be demand for efficient point to point travel, but the ability to compete on price diminishes. And that's why FR might have a problem.

"Ryanair has huge cash reserves" where have I heard that before?

This isnt just going to affect RYR its going to affect every airline! people are still going to want to fly! and the demand will still be there! regardless of oil prices!

Saccade, I agree with what you say. However, if the price of oil goes up that much there will be few airlines survive. air travel will again be for the wealthy, and many pilots, cabin crew, engineers etc will be out of work.
I don't see it anytime soon, despite the doom mongers.

How do you know the oil prices won't come down again?

Oil prices wont come down again because China will more than make up for the shortfall in demand / OPEC doesnt see any reason to reduce its profits etc. What will really leave ryanair up the creak though is the weak pound. Soon Micko will be stetched way to far. The bigger the ego the harder the fall.

I think I´m going to short the stock.

Is it true that Lewis Hamilton is being employed by Ryanair on a consultancy basis to advise on "improving efficiency between the Gate and the Runway"?

Jack 2008-04-01

30 something:

RYR is a euro-based company being based in Eire.

A point that no financial analyst has mentioned. In 2003/4 when oil started to drift upwards the euro/U$ rate was about 1.05. Oil went from 30U$pb to 60/70U$ pb. There was a slight panic, but nohting like 1975 when oil doubled in price. That caused an avaiation downturn lasting 7 years.
Now oil is 100U$pb, but the euro/U$ rate is 1.50. Thus the euro price for oil is still the same as it was in 2004. So why all the panic that euroairlines are up against the wall. It seems to be scare mongering to be able to add fuel surcharges that are not really justified. USA airlines might be feeling the pinch, but euro based airlines, who had hedged fuel at 65U$pb are IMHO crying wolf. Their euro price has not changed that much; or am I missing something. The same is true for GBP v U$. The pound is only down against euro not U$.

He wants rid of them and thats all there is to it. He has this as an excuse. When he wants to jet off somewhere he will still take an aircraft and fly off to where ever he wants to go with just him and a PR person onboard to announce new routes. Now there is a waste of money.

Guess we're a bit off topic, but this is in the news today,

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle3662046.ece

"The New Model Airline is getting a bit frilly, but the emerging strategy of “make the punter pay” will work only if capacity is drained from Europe's overcrowded skies. That requires more airline bankruptcies. The only alternative is a return to very cheap fuel and the odds must be better on the former than on the latter."

Also slighty off topic, but I can´t stop wondering:

about any german company that has a callcenter has outsourced to it IRELAND.

And MOL says:
Our existing Romanian and German call centres will continue to provide telesales services at 60% lower costs than Ryanair Direct.

Why do I think it does not add up?

Rat 5.

Oil is just " pulling back " its decline coincides with money moving into the market over the last few days but soon it will be a both a speculative instrument / in demand again. Today the uptrend in oil continued rising 4% ( the fact is the Americans are not using less but more as inventory figures in the US show american reserves are dwindling again . Soon the " admnistration " will be pleading with OPEC once more .

The dollar has not weakened at the same pace as oil has increased so to say that oil is as cheap as ever in euro land is wrong. Especially over the last 3 years where MOL has made his best money. He c***ed it up when he did not hedge and now he cant.

Furthermore with the ECB unable to cut rates due to inflation and the BOE being able to do so in the near term its likely that the pound will weaken further against the euro , the BOE have hinted at being happy with 1.20 euros to the pound calling the current downtrend of the pound a " welcome correction ". A weak pound has traditionally been a problem for Irish exporters.

MOL called it a perfect storm for his business when it wasnt looking as grim. He will probably prance around like a schoolboy if Alitalia goes belly up but many of the mainline carriers he talks about going pop are cash rich and hedged.