I have always wondered why Rygge-Moss was so ill-fortuned..Rygge was a good alternative for Oslo, as LCC primarily. Torp is 110km away and it takes about two hours by train or bus to reach central Oslo. Rygge on the other hand by rail is 50' away..And the bus they used to have from Oslo reached the airport in an hour or a little less. Not to mention that Fredrikstad is just 35' from RYG .I know because i flew there in 2013..I also know there was a dispute about the norwegian air passenger tax imposed back then and Ryanair had decided to cancel its network from RYG making the operation of Rygge airport unsustainable. What i don't understand is, since the tax was imposed on all airports, why Torp attracted most of the traffic,given how far away it is..(like Hahn or Beauvais) and RYG couldn't?..Ryanair ,Wizzair,Wideroe,even KLM flies there..Both airports are mostly LCC airports..Is there a chance that Rygge could ever re-open?

Ryanair seem to have realised that while airport fees at primary airports are higher than those at tertiary airports, the increased fares they can charge to primary airports along with the increased demand from passengers (eg pax self connecting to domestic flights on Norwegian/SAS/Wideroe) leads to higher profits.

I doubt Ryanair will be pulling aircraft out of Gardemoen and moving them to Rygge or Torp (even if Rygge was about to reopen) any time soon

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair seem to have realised that while airport fees at primary airports are higher than those at tertiary airports, the increased fares they can charge to primary airports along with the increased demand from passengers (eg pax self connecting to domestic flights on Norwegian/SAS/Wideroe) leads to higher profits.

I doubt Ryanair will be pulling aircraft out of Gardemoen and moving them to Rygge or Torp (even if Rygge was about to reopen) any time soon

Ryanair s majority of flights to Oslo are at Torp not Gardenmoen..OSL has very few FR flights

Didn’t taxes imposed by Norway kill the Rygge operation?

marcogr12 wrote:

What i don't understand is, since the tax was imposed on all airports, why Torp attracted most of the traffic,given how far away it is..(like Hahn or Beauvais) and RYG couldn't?..Ryanair ,Wizzair,Wideroe,even KLM flies there..Both airports are mostly LCC airports..

In the case of Torp, it also serves Sandefjord and has had service for many years before Ryanair. I suspect Wideroes, KLM and some of the LCC traffic to leisure destinations maybe aimed at this more local market

Rygge is also closer to the Swedish border. At the time Rygge closed Sweden still didn't tax aviation, so it was cheaper to drive from Rygge to Gothenborg or Karlstad than to pay the Norwegian tax at Rygge. Torp doesn't have that problem because it's on the other side of the Oslo fjord, further away from the Swedish border.

With the current (high) Swedish aviation tax it might make sense to reopen Rygge and try to attract some Swedes to fly from there. From Gothenborg or Trollhattan it's only a short drive. Both the Norwegians and the Swedish are very price-sensitive and will always fly from the cheapest (least-taxed) airport.

Torp has a larger local cathment area, and also have a good portion of domestic traffic. Something that never worked at Rygge.

Also Rygge in reality had one single customer, Ryanair, focussing on discount destinations, while the traffic at Torp always has been more mixed.

marcogr12 wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair seem to have realised that while airport fees at primary airports are higher than those at tertiary airports, the increased fares they can charge to primary airports along with the increased demand from passengers (eg pax self connecting to domestic flights on Norwegian/SAS/Wideroe) leads to higher profits.

I doubt Ryanair will be pulling aircraft out of Gardemoen and moving them to Rygge or Torp (even if Rygge was about to reopen) any time soon

Ryanair s majority of flights to Oslo are at Torp not Gardenmoen..OSL has very few FR flights

Very true, their presence at the major airports is often very limited. Their main focus remains at the smaller airports.

Here in the Netherlands Ryanair does fly to Amsterdam, they have 2 routes from there. For comparison, they have 39 routes out of Eindhoven including the two destinations they serve from Amsterdam. Looking further, they have 2 routes out of Munich and 26 out of Memmingen. In Paris they still don't serve any of the major airports (Charles de Gaulle or Orly), they're happy with Beauvais (41 routes) and to a lesser extent Vatry (3 routes).

In Oslo this is no different. Ryanair flies 2 routes out of Oslo Gardermoen and 14 out of Torp.

Ryanair is flying into the major airports only for the show, so that they can say they serve those airports. They don't make any serious money there, the airports are far too expensive for that. EasyJet is the LCC that focusses on the major airports, but their fares are always significantly higher than Ryanair. They need to be to pay those expensive airports.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Both the Norwegians and the Swedish are very price-sensitive and will always fly from the cheapest (least-taxed) airport.

Not Norwegians, thus why Rygge always struggled

PatrickZ80 wrote:

marcogr12 wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair seem to have realised that while airport fees at primary airports are higher than those at tertiary airports, the increased fares they can charge to primary airports along with the increased demand from passengers (eg pax self connecting to domestic flights on Norwegian/SAS/Wideroe) leads to higher profits.

I doubt Ryanair will be pulling aircraft out of Gardemoen and moving them to Rygge or Torp (even if Rygge was about to reopen) any time soon

Ryanair s majority of flights to Oslo are at Torp not Gardenmoen..OSL has very few FR flights

Very true, their presence at the major airports is often very limited. Their main focus remains at the smaller airports.

Here in the Netherlands Ryanair does fly to Amsterdam, they have 2 routes from there. For comparison, they have 39 routes out of Eindhoven including the two destinations they serve from Amsterdam. Looking further, they have 2 routes out of Munich and 26 out of Memmingen. In Paris they still don't serve any of the major airports (Charles de Gaulle or Orly), they're happy with Beauvais (41 routes) and to a lesser extent Vatry (3 routes).

In Oslo this is no different. Ryanair flies 2 routes out of Oslo Gardermoen and 14 out of Torp.

Ryanair is flying into the major airports only for the show, so that they can say they serve those airports. They don't make any serious money there, the airports are far too expensive for that. EasyJet is the LCC that focusses on the major airports, but their fares are always significantly higher than Ryanair. They need to be to pay those expensive airports.

It's not really the point of the thread, but your argument is not universally true; FR has substantial flying out of Brussels Zaventem as well as Charleroi (no idea ratio between the two, but there's a lot), and has substantial flying out of Frankfurt (in addition to Hahn, again ratio unclear), similar pattern in Glasgow vs. Prestwick where I think Glasgow International has more than Prestwick. It's not so clear cut.

The Rygge issue is probably more to do with the tax issue raised above. And was Rygge on the rail network? I know Torp is, that is a big advantage.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Didn’t taxes imposed by Norway kill the Rygge operation?

Yes, when the tax was implemented, Ryanair pulled out of the airport.
I think Ryanair had even a base in the airport, and had quite an extensive list of destinations from there.
In contrast, in Gardermoen there are only 2 routes, as noted before, and they are operated from other bases.

jubaexpress wrote:

. And was Rygge on the rail network? I know Torp is, that is a big advantage.

Yes, however both airports requires a short tour with a shuttle bus between the train station and the airport

albertocsc wrote:

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Didn’t taxes imposed by Norway kill the Rygge operation?

Yes, when the tax was implemented, Ryanair pulled out of the airport.
I think Ryanair had even a base in the airport, and had quite an extensive list of destinations from there.
In contrast, in Gardermoen there are only 2 routes, as noted before, and they are operated from other bases.

Actually Ryanair didn't pull out of the airport, it was the airport that closed. I.e the other way around. The aviation tax was just a lame excuse


To elaborate further:

When Rygge opened, Norwegian and various charter operators started flying from Rygge to various international destination, as well as Widerøe with a short lived RYG-CPH route. Later Norwegian also added domestic operations to TRD, BGO, SVG, which never were a success. Later in 2009, Ryanair started flying to Rygge and established a base there in 2010, and expanded with a mix of routes from the Rygge-base and flight into Rygge from other bases. At the same time, they reduced their traffic at TRF slighty, but never withdrew. Norwegian later closed its domestic operations from Rygge (with 737s) and DAT made an attempt with ATR aircraft on domestic operation, without succeeding. Both as the local market is limited and competition from OSL, which offered much better frequencies. Both the volumes and yield is better on the western side at the Oslofjord, due to more people and much larger business traffic

Ryanair kept increasing and in the end Rygge was a in practice all Ryanair-airport, plus some charter flight to the Mediterranean as Norwegian kept withdrawing. However, at the same time the aviation tax was implemented, Ryanair lost a court case regarding their base at Rygge, which resulted in those based in Rygge had to be employed based on Norwegian law and thus with local conditions. Ryanair refused this, and then decided to close the base. Blaming the aviation tax, although the real reason was the court case they lost

With the closure of the base, about half the traffic at the airport would have disappeared, and there was no other airlines in sight to pick up the traffic. The owners of the airport then decided to close the airport. Ryanair, then who already had decided to close the base, then started London Stansted (3x daily) and Kaunas (1x daily) from OSL, while other routes either was dropped or gradually moved to TRF instead. It the aviation tax was to blame, all routes would have been shut down and not moved to OSL or TRF.

At OSL Ryanair also got some decent slots in the morning. The Kaunas flight is operated KUN-OSL-STN-OSL-KUN, while the to other STN rotations is operated from STN.

At TRF Ryanair has the last few years been the 2nd largest carrier behind Wizz, and operates several routes in competition with both Wizz and Norwegian, while being alone on several others