Ryanair, a highly entrepreneurial airline, has always sailed a little close to the wind with some of its advertising and branding. Like a Costco or WalMart, Ryanair has stacked it high and sold it cheap, amassing the scalps of airlines along the way, such as Buzz, or severely dinting the profits of the so-called 'national flagship' airlines (Aer Lingus, BA, Lufthansa, Air France).
Most famously was Ryanair taking on the BA/Lingus duopoly on travel between London and Dublin. They broke it, and Lingus is now forced to fly small aircraft out of Stansted, while Ryan flies 15 times a day to Dublin.
The airline realises that if you're going to cover your costs (and maybe make a profit!) flying people around, you can have a half full cabin paying high fares or a chock-full paying little. Ryanair has inversed that traveler's addage of "it's not about the destination, it's the journey".
The fact that these cheap fares are available means that air-travel is within reach of everyone, not just those using other people's money to fly. This is not flying to enjoy, but flying to smell the camembert of a true French fromagerie, to taste Guinness at its source or to feel the sand between toes on a Tenerife beach.
Now, there are a few groundings to this seemingly perfect scenario. Critics of the airline (often the scorned full-fare competitors) say: "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys". The critics are correct to some degree. Let's take an example:
If I booked a flight today from London Stansted to Belfast International for Travel on June 2 returning June 16 the fare is 2 pence. Fine but; this does NOT include:
- Taxes of £22.48 and £26.20 for each leg of the trip, which includes government, airport and assorted such as a wheelchair levy (even if you don't use one!): £48.68
- Have a bag to check in? Double whammy! You pay for the privilege of the check-in attendant's time and expertise (£3 per leg) as well as the transport of the bag (£6 per leg): £18
- I won't include Priority Boarding and Travel Insurance in the cost as they are optional extras, but they are available for £3 and £7 a leg respectively.
- Visa? MasterCard? £3 per passenger per leg, Debit £1 per passenger per leg. For a single passenger, negligible, but booking for a family of 5 would make this an extra £30! £6
Total Taxes and Extras £72.68
So you can understand the poor passenger's gripe when a fare is advertised at £0.02, but ends up being £72.70 (taxes included). Nor does Ryanair necessarily fly to mainstream airports. Beauvais is an hour's bus outside Paris, Prestwick is down by the Troon golf course, and Torp is well out of Oslo past snow covered fields, transfers are an extra cost. Nor does the airline offer refunds of any kinds. Nor does the airline offer large baggage allowances.
But, despite the pledges of many travelers to give up the airline because of these differences, money talks. Ryanair is often the cheapeast way to see some destinations, despite the so called 'stealth taxes' imposed by the airline. Ultimately, the customer has everything laid out in front of them, and a final price to pay to their airline. They can still choose to proceed.
Update: After putting this up, I checked the EasyJet equivalent for the same day, approx same flight times, 1 pax with 1 bag, and they came to £51.96, a good £20 cheaper than Ryanair. Competition exists at the low cost end market also, and EasyJet's baggage allowance is 20kgs, to RyanAir's 15kgs.
But ultimately, Ryanair is not competing with full fare airlines. Ryanair is competing with train and shipping lines. Part of a European holiday involving a crossing of either the English Channel or the Irish Sea usually meant bringing along the family car in the hope of saving the (often exorbitant) cost of rental, especially in pre-Schengen days. Now the money saved on flights can be used to rent.
Advertising: Sharp but risky
The longer than expected background brings me to today's news that Carla Bruni and Nicholas will be suing for invasion of privacy. They are seeking €500,000 and €1 respectively, with Bruni's picture used for commercial purposes without payment commanding the largest sum.
Carla's speech bubble says:
With Ryanair, all my family can come to my wedding.
The smart advertising makes the connection between the size of Ms Bruni's Italian family and her imminent wedding to President Sarkozy.
UPDATE 2
Sarkozy has decided to settle for a euro, but Carla Bruni is carrying on the action. Ryanair has offered to donate 5000 Euros. A spokesman for Sarkozy said:
"For the President of the Republic it is a question of principle. As for Carla Bruni, it's her profession, it's her image. She has suffered a financial loss,"he told a regular weekly news briefing.
Francis Taitgen, the Ryanair lawyer has claimed free speech when defending the company's actions. Taitgen said Ryanair agreed to publish the judgment in three newspapers and to make a 5,000 euro donation to charity but he said Bruni should accept that she was in a special position.
"She declares that she comes before you as a model and singer who earns a great deal of money. But this is not the photo of a singer! It is the photo of a woman with the man she loves!," he told the court."When one has the immense good fortune to have glory and fame, one should accept the inconvenient aspects," he said.
But this isn't the first time Ryanair has found itself in hot water over its tack on advertising. Just a couple of months ago, it released a glamour charity calendar with its female staff strutting their stuff in various airside locales.
But that's not all, the airline was also rapped over the knuckles by the British Ads agency over the "Hottest Back to School Fares" newspaper ad featuring a skirt clad young woman exposing quite a bit of skin.
I feel Ryan's biggest faux pas was when they charged a man 18 pounds for use of a wheelchair. The UK Court of Appeal found that Ryanair and Stansted had discriminated against disabled people.
Update 3
Its flamboyant CEO Michael O'Leary, has a few quotable quotes with regards to regulation, the environment and the state of the travel industry:
- On the right to fly: "For years flying has been the preserve of rich fuckers. Now everyone can afford to fly."
- Travel agents: "Screw the travel agent. Take the fuckers out and shoot them. What have they done for passengers over the years?"
- On Ryanair's strict no-refund policy: "We don't fall all over ourselves if they... say my granny fell ill. What part of no refund don't you understand? You are not getting a refund so fuck off."
- On Jurgen Weber, Lufthansa CEO: "Weber says Germans don't like low fares. How the fuck does he know? He's never offered them any. The Germans will crawl bollock-naked over broken glass to get them."
- On co-existence with British Airways: "There is too much: 'we really admire our competitors'. All bollocks. Everyone wants to kick the shit out of everyone else. We want to beat the crap out of BA. They mean to kick the crap out of us."
Tidnup has flown Ryanair on a dozen occasions, to Destinations such as Glasgow (Prestwick), Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris (Beauvais) and Oslo (Torp).
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