Ryanair cuts back on its Stansted winter flights July 21, 2009 NO frills airline Ryanair yesterday announced a 40 per cent capacity cutback in its winter flights out of Stansted, blaming the government’s Air Passenger Duty and the airport’s passenger fees. The cut comes at a bad time for BAA, which has been forced to sell the airport along with Gatwick and one of its Scottish airports. [...]
Ryanair to add routes to Oslo July 16, 2009 Budget airline Ryanair said yesterday it was adding seven new routes to and from Oslo airport, as it seeks to avoid passing on fuel surcharges to passengers. Ryanair’s new routes from Oslo (Rygge) to Alicante, Barcelona (Girona), Brussels (Charleroi), Bremen, London (Stansted), Madrid and Milan (Bergamo), will take off in October, and will fly more [...]
Standing room only: coming soon to an airline near you July 7, 2009 YESJEREMY HAZLEHURSTTHE news that Ryanair is offering standing seating to customers should come as a surprise to nobody who has ever travelled on the carrier. Indeed, it is the logical extension of its ethos, which involves turning aeroplanes into a mix of a fairground and a sardine tin. The idea behind this radical new idea [...]
June is a bumper month for Ryanair and EasyJet July 6, 2009 BUDGET airlines Ryanair and EasyJet yesterday said they had recorded year-on-year passenger increases after an exodus of passengers from premium rival British Airways (BA). Figures for June showed that Ryanair carried more passengers than ever before, with 5.8m people using the Irish airline. This represents a 13 per cent increase on passenger traffic from a [...]
CLIPPED WINGS June 23, 2009 MICHAEL O’Leary’s Ryanair is slashing the number of aircraft it has at its Irish bases, and is likely to do the same at its UK airports, it said yesterday. The infamous aviation boss blamed taxes levied on air travel in the two countries for the planned moves. He said Ryanair will still fly 67m passengers [...]
Ryanair slashes aircraft numbers June 17, 2009 Irish budget airline Ryanair will reduce the number of its aircraft at two Irish bases and will likely do so at airports in the United Kingdom as well, chief executive Michael O’Leary said yesterday. O’Leary, who blamed taxes levied on air travel in the two countries for the planned moves, said Ryanair was still planning [...]
Quality brands are becoming more popular again June 16, 2009 FOR a while we saw the march of the “value” brands, as the recession helped Aldi and co make advances on their more expensive rivals. The graph shows what actually happened to brand values. We have created two baskets of brands – seven associated with lower-end or “value-for-money’ (Aldi, Morrisons, Primark, Matalan, RyanAir, Walls, Subway), [...]
BAA suffers a traffic slump in downturn June 10, 2009 AIRPORT operator BAA said yesterday its passenger numbers for May had slumped for the 14th month in a row, as 11.8m passengers used its seven airports – down 7.3 per cent from a year ago. Stansted, one of three airports BAA is being forced to sell, was hit hardest, seeing its air traffic slump 18.5 [...]
Michael O’Leary sells off 16.5m of Ryanair stock June 8, 2009 MICHAEL O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, has sold off €18.75m (£16.5m) of stock in the budget airline, it emerged yesterday. O’Leary divested 5m shares, taking his holding in the firm down to just over four per cent, equal to 60m shares. The news comes after Ryanair last week fell to its first full-year loss [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS June 3, 2009 VODAFONE GROUPCitigroup analysts returned from travelling with Vodafone managers to meet investors and were no less positive on the structural opportunity at the group than before. The broker remains a “buy” on the stock with a target price of 118p, but argues that targets could be increased, perhaps in November. The focus remains on shareholder [...]