Ryanair has recently improved their passenger numbers and bottom line profits. Their monthly growth is at 10% or more and they are on track to reach the 106 million passengers mark this year, up 6% from the same time last year.
There are a few factors helping them keep their costs down. Pilots that flew under contract, low cost fuel, and bare bones cabin décor. Despite these cost cutting strategies, Ryanair was struggling last year to keep their seats filled amongst competition with other low budget airlines. There were also the exorbitant fees for everything in addition to a seat, such as tea and coffee, the penalty charge if you didn’t have your boarding pass, overweight bags, etc.
This has changed over the past year with Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, reducing the penalty for no boarding pass to 45 pounds, reduced from 70, and telling his staff to be nicer and less confrontational to customers, as well as relaxing the carry-on rules a bit. It has improved customer relations and has served to bring their numbers up with 92% of their seats being sold per flight compared to 83% at this time last year.
These improvements and bolstered numbers have resulted in major hubs in places like Brussels, Amsterdam, and Milan courting the smaller budget airlines as legacy airlines try to get their acts together.
O’Leary has stated that he had no idea being nice to their customers could have made such a big difference. He says if he had known, he would have done it much sooner!