Low-Cost Carriers achieve economies of scale by deploying large, single-model fleets across an expanding set of regional bases. The addition of new bases and routes is bound by profitability and ...operational aspects, both posing limitations to the travel demand that can be served. We explored the evolution of Ryanair's network and discussed the factors that influence the airline's choices. We used highly detailed information on the evolution of the fleet and routes and calculated suitable indicators for the quantification of the trends. Based on these observations, we explored the implications for travel and tourism. The analysis was supported by interviews with industry experts. The main conclusion is that there is bi-directional causality between airline network evolution and travel demand.
•Multi-base network structure is an essential element of Low-Cost Carriers.•The key considerations for new routes are cost, commercial and operational factors.•The Low-Cost Carriers' business model leads to local market saturation.•The Low-Cost Carriers' business model requires constant expansion.•The top-down approach is the main driver for network development.
Pilot retention has been a significant concern for airlines that find it difficult to recruit and maintain pilots who are classified as high skilled employees. The aim of this research is to ...determine the factors that influence pilot retention and investigate if these factors differ based on gender, age and level of commercial flying experience of pilots. A mixed methods approach was used. Quantitative information was collected via an online survey sent to 394 Ryanair pilots. Nine in-depth expert interviews were conducted. The pilots ranked, in order of importance, a number of retention-influencing factors spanning seven areas, identified with the help of interviewees and secondary research. The results of the survey indicate that the most important retention influencing factors are being based at home, working a fixed roster pattern for a financially stable airline, being paid a competitive salary and having job security. This research provides qualitative evidence that airlines can use to develop or update their financial and non-financial benefits packages and where necessary, amend work practices and maximise pilot motivation to stay.
•Airlines generally face high rates of pilot turnover.•Seven category areas containing 30 subcategories influencing pilot retention are identified.•394 Ryanair pilots assessed their retention-influencing factors in the seven category areas.•The most important factors are: being home based, fixed roster, financially-stable carrier, competitive salary, job security.
This article explores customer service interactions between the Irish airline Ryanair and its passengers on the social networking platform Twitter. Using a corpus linguistic methodology, it ...investigates a 1-million-word corpus of Twitter threads comprising tweets addressed to and posted by Ryanair between August 2018 and July 2019. Studying the communicative strategies used in the corpus reveals customers’ main concerns and causes for complaint, and how the airline addresses these in their response tweets offering assistance to passengers. In addition, the analysis of customer response tweets to these corporate replies allows insights into customers’ reactions to and perception of the (often generic) answers they receive. The aim of this case study is to gain further understanding of the linguistic and communicative features that characterize customer service interactions online, and the attitudes customers voice toward them, with a view to streamlining customer communication and improving levels of customer satisfaction.
We analyse the fare setting strategy of a leading European low-cost carrier, Ryanair, which, until recently, adopted an unsegmented pricing policy (all tickets belong to a single fare class). We show ...that, to account for different demand characteristics, the company adjusts the two main components governing the dynamics of posted fares, namely time (the number of days before departure) and capacity (the current number of available seats). We find that: 1) in routes with a strong presence of leisure (business) traffic, fares are set to be less (more) responsive to the time component; 2) in schedules more suitable for leisure (business) travellers, fares are set to be less (more) responsive to the capacity component.
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•Ryanair's fare setting is much more sophisticated than it looks.•It consists of two components: time (remaining days before departure) and capacity (remaining seats on the plane).•The time component becomes stronger moving from leisure to business routes.•The capacity component becomes stronger moving from leisure to business schedules.
We analyse the pricing policy adopted by Ryanair, the main low-cost carrier in Europe. Based on a year's fare data for all of Ryanair's European flights, using a family of hyperbolic price functions, ...the optimal pricing curve for each route is estimated. The analysis shows a positive correlation between the average fare for each route and its length, the frequency of flights operating on that route, and the percentage of fully booked flights. As the share of seats offered by the carrier at the departure and destination airports increases, fares tend to decrease. The correlation of dynamic pricing to route length and the frequency of flights is negative. Conversely, as competition increases discounts on advance fares rise.
This article reviews the dimensions of the low-cost carriers' (LCC) spatial development and socio-economic impact in the Polish cities of Poznan and Wroclaw. The LCC spatial effect, measured via the ...connectivity and network structure analysis in 2005-2019, figured out that both airports experienced connectivity growth due to rapid network development of the leading budget airlines in Central and Eastern Europe – Ryanair and Wizz Air, and Wroclaw developed higher connectivity over Poznan. The airports' passenger traffic analysis showed that the LCC entered the market after Poland’s accession to the European Union and that type of carriers represents a significant share of total passenger traffic at both airports (approximately 60%), and the numbers have had a positive dynamics of growth, but the LCC passenger traffic was higher in Wroclaw due to local demographics, state of the economy, better tourism potential, better financial conditions offered to the airlines (i.e., landing and passenger fees). Despite the fact, that there is a statistical connection between passenger traffic growth and socio-economic indicators, including tourism variables, both in Poznan and Wroclaw, further research on the role of such factors, as business environment, local governance, state of the economy is needed. The entrance of the LCC provided socio-economic benefits to the studied airports. The opening of the operational bases of Ryanair and Wizz Air increased numbers of investments and potential jobs supported at both airports. The data shows that Wroclaw, succeeding in attracting the LCC, had better performance and had more economic benefits over Poznan.
Compelling a recalcitrant employer to cede its staff independent collective representation has always been a fraught and difficult exercise. It is an inordinately more complex task when that employer ...is a multinational company that is capable of moving its operations from one country to another with relative ease. For workers to be successful, requires that they and their representatives coordinate their organizing and mobilizing activities across national boundaries in a manner that they have rarely been able to achieve. This inductive study examines one such rare example – Ryanair – and investigates the basis for its pilots’, albeit partial, success. Its contribution is the explication of a causal model that identifies a set of institutional and structural conditions, and agentic actions that led Ryanair to cede its staff union representation, while also pointing to the limitations of the pilots’ ‘victory’. It ends by identifying a number of changes to Europe's institutional and regulatory architecture that, if enacted, could help the workers of resolutely anti‐union MNEs secure recognition for unitary pan‐European structures of representation.
Abstract
Wizzair was the first low-cost airline to operate at Kosice Airport. From the beginning, it has shown exceptionally good results and the occupancy of its lines has been over 80%. The ...situation that took place in Vienna forced Wizzair to cancel the base in Kosice and to move the fleet to Vienna. Ryanair takes advantage of this change and enters the market with practically the same line as Wizzair from Kosice to London. The aim of this paper is to describe the situation at Kosice airport. The competitive fight between these two companies is visible from the very first moment when Ryanair introduced its flights at a much better price than Wizzair. The paper also focuses on the comparing these prices and fares as well as the profit over the period under review.
This article utilises both the theoretical and practical lenses located in the discipline of forensic linguistics to examine the practice of administering language tests to applicants for citizenship ...in South Africa, considering the prevailing policies and practices in an international context, and concludes that they should be avoided. In this interdisciplinary article I outline the South African constitutional and legislative provisions affecting language testing and language proficiency when applying for citizenship in multilingual South Africa. In this paper I discuss the linkages between language, citizenship, and xenophobia, building on the work by Brits, Kaschula and Docrat on the role of language in xenophobic attacks and protests. I argue that language tests for immigrants in the South African context perpetuate Apartheid-era thinking, policies and practices. This creates linguistic inequality and contributes to racial tensions and divisions in communities rather than creating social cohesion and equality for all. The article provides a case study of Operation Dudula, where language is being used to carry out xenophobic acts under the banner of citizenship. A brief comparison is drawn with Ryanair airlines' language tests for South African citizens.
Over the past 30 years, Ryanair has succeeded in becoming one of Europe’s leading airliners. This success mainly comes from its decision to adopt a discount business model. In social terms, Ryanair ...is characterised by a personnel policy that prioritises keeping costs low while doing everything possible to increase productivity and flexibility. It combines this approach with an overtly anti-union stance that includes the refusal to negotiate with officially recognised unions. The text looks at these two dimensions by analysing a conflict in Belgium opposing former Ryanair cabin crew supported by a leading Belgian trade union and Crewlink, an Irish company to which Ryanair has subcontracted stewards’ recruitment, training and engagement. It has taken several years for cabin crew staff to get contracts where they would be working directly for Ryanair.
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