It is reported (not by Ryanair themselves) that the airline will cut 220 connections this summer while starting 136 new ones.
The airports most affected are Warsaw/Chopin, Gerona, Weese et Stockholm/Skavsta.
Ryanair found out that passengers prefer the "real" airports in place of the "pretented" ones such as Brussels/Charleroi, Oslo/Rygge et Frankfurt/Hahn.
Surprise?

What a shock if true... not  

As they move towards more of a focus on main airports, the secondary airports will likely still have a role, but it will look very different in coming years I would suspect.

Quoting breiz (Thread starter): It is reported (not by Ryanair themselves) that the airline will cut 220 connections this summer while starting 136 new ones. The airports most affected are Warsaw/Chopin, Gerona, Weese et Stockholm/Skavsta. Ryanair found out that passengers prefer the "real" airports in place of the "pretented" ones such as Brussels/Charleroi, Oslo/Rygge et Frankfurt/Hahn. Surprise?

Right this is only part of the story starting with Warsaw , operations at Chopin were only ever temporary and due to runway limitations at Modlin.

These have now transferred with some marginal alteration in frequencies - So the long standing use of secondary airports continues.

Whilst Girona has seen reductions - Barcelona has increased

Weeze (Niederrhein/Bruggen) - Dusseldorf Far West or is it Venlo simply under performs for some reason - Probably too far from the main centre of the Ruhr and even competes with Ryanair's own Eindhoven services

As for fleet they haven't received a factory fresh frame from Boeing since December 2012 and have in fact reduced fleet by 8 since then.

They are however compensating with leases of 7- a mix of 737-400 and 737-800 across the coming northern summer period.

As part of the flexible business model routes are added and dropped every season and as market conditions dictate.
Whilst the number of destinations may change , right now its very much consolidation and at reduced frequency elsewhere in the network.

222 routes (and technically markets), not connections. It dropped 222 routes for this summer and started 138 - so a net loss of 84. There's very good analysis of it at a website that it a girl's name.

Given the age of FR - nearly 25 years from its change into an LCC - it's not surprising that it is moving somewhat away from secondary airports. This will help increase its competitiveness with other airlines and help to attract some more business passengers.

It'll still be the cost leader, as this will ultimately have relatively little impact on its non-fuel CASM - and it'll be offset by higher average fares.

So it'll still be able to cater nicely for the 'bottom end' while moving slightly upwards to better target the 'middle'.

[Edited 2014-05-15 04:29:07]

Quoting rutankrd (Reply 3): Whilst Girona has seen reductions - Barcelona has increased

Ah crap. We're pretty much seasonal as it is. We're handy for Costa Brava destinations though, could be our niche, if BCN wants to take over...

Quoting aerdingus (Reply 5): We're pretty much seasonal as it is. We're handy for Costa Brava destinations though, could be our niche, if BCN wants to take over...

GRO is down by 18 routes in Aug 14 v. Aug 13, and 59 weekly departures (av of just under 9 flights a day).

Quoting breiz (Thread starter): It is reported (not by Ryanair themselves) that the airline will cut 220 connections this summer while starting 136 new ones. The airports most affected are Warsaw/Chopin, Gerona, Weese et Stockholm/Skavsta. Ryanair found out that passengers prefer the "real" airports in place of the "pretented" ones such as Brussels/Charleroi, Oslo/Rygge et Frankfurt/Hahn. Surprise?

The first example is especially misleading. Warsaw/Chopin is the main airport which is cut since all existing flights are being moved and a few new ones are being started at Warsaw/Modlin, a "far-away-from-the-city" or "pretended" airport of which Ryanair is the sole customer.

Quoting breiz (Thread starter): Ryanair found out that passengers prefer the "real" airports in place of the "pretented" ones such as Brussels/Charleroi, Oslo/Rygge et Frankfurt/Hahn. Surprise?

No. "Frankfurt"-Hahn is so far from Frankfurt its a joke they are allowed to name it so. Hahn is as close to Luxemburg as it is to Frankurt. For anyone living in Frankfurt it doesnt make sense to go there. Count the time lost to get there and the cost of transport, and you´ll easily find a LH flight from FRA at around the same price. Beside that, at Hahn you have no service whatsoever in the early morning or late evening, when the cheap flights are departing. No wonder Hahn is in the red.

Quoting breiz (Thread starter): Ryanair found out that passengers prefer the "real" airports in place of the "pretented" ones such as Brussels/Charleroi, Oslo/Rygge et Frankfurt/Hahn.

When I flew to Glasgow/Prestwick a few years ago, I enjoyed it. The great Golf Courses are there 
Of course, Frankfurt/Hahn is ridiculous.

Quoting konrad (Reply 7): The first example is especially misleading. Warsaw/Chopin is the main airport which is cut since all existing flights are being moved and a few new ones are being started at Warsaw/Modlin, a "far-away-from-the-city" or "pretended" airport of which Ryanair is the sole customer.

Actually this happened last year (September I think), so this is very old news.

The article is a story about a bunch of numbers without context.

Ryanair's "increase" in BRU has one purpose and one purpose only, trying to block Vueling's expansion in BRU. There is no doubt that if they are successful, Ryanair will close BRU and again serve only CRL. Ryanair is so uninterested in making BRU work from a financial standpoint, they didn't even try and ask for a cent in subsidies, tax breaks, incentives, bribe, whatever... from the airport, the regional government or anyone else before showing up. Heck airport authorities found out officially (rumors were floating) from Ryanair literally 5 minutes before a press conference!

Quoting breiz (Thread starter): Ryanair found out that passengers prefer the "real" airports in place of the "pretented" ones

Someone better tell F9 at IAD 

Quoting na (Reply 8): No. "Frankfurt"-Hahn is so far from Frankfurt its a joke they are allowed to name it so. Hahn is as close to Luxemburg as it is to Frankurt. For anyone living in Frankfurt it doesnt make sense to go there. Count the time lost to get there and the cost of transport, and you´ll easily find a LH flight from FRA at around the same price. Beside that, at Hahn you have no service whatsoever in the early morning or late evening, when the cheap flights are departing. No wonder Hahn is in the red.

It is always the same "narrow-minded" attitude in those threads when thinking about Ryanair. Many of those "secondary" airports serve also cities other than the one it takes the name from or serves destinations not offered from the main airport. Ryanair with a HHN-GRO is not trying to compete with Lufthansa BCN-FRA. That would be silly.

And HHN is definitely an extreme case, as it must be among the Top 5 most remote Ryanair airports. But even at that point, it has a case. Take a look at HHN's destinations. There are a reasonable number of cities (in fact most of its destinations) not served from FRA: Alghero, Bari, Bergamo, Cagliari, Comiso, Fez, Girona, Kaunas, Kerry, Lamezia-Terme, Marrakech, Montpellier, Pescara, Pisa, Plovdiv, Reus, Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Skopje, Tampere, Targu Mures, Trapani, Treviso and Volos. Some might be "long shots" (like BGY or GRO... but they also have their own catchment areas). You will not "easily find a LH flight from FRA at around the same price" to any of those cities... there are not.

Then look from the HHN point of view. Hahn is linked to cities where FRA is even less convenient. Hahn has bus services to places like Metz (France), Koblenz, Koln or Luxembourg so that gives an idea. You are not likely to drive/take a bus from LUX to FRA but maybe to HHN you do it.

So maybe if you are a Macedonian living in Frankfurt, going to HHN to fly directly to SKP "makes sense" (unless you do a connection somewhere else from FRA, probably similar time and far costlier). If you are from Bari, and you work in Luxembourg... maybe HHN "makes sense". Or if you live in the Frankfurt area and you want to go to Montpellier for a short holiday, it might be far cheaper and probably similar time than from FRA (likely FRA-MRS-train).

Then dualities like BCN/GRO are quite smart IMO. BCN gets the "main" destinations where it has to compete with the likes of Vueling, easyJet and legacies. GRO gets "holiday" flights (Costa Brava around GRO is a major tourism spot) and those "remote" flights with no competition from BCN (so it is you fly from GRO or you have to connect). So Ryanair can tap into two different markets. Of course in places like HHN it doesn't have this advantage of competing with LH/FRA but it has its niche market. It is not like everybody flying from HHN instead of FRA is doing that just because it is cheaper.

@SCQ83, I couldn't agree more   

Emanuele

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 13): It is always the same "narrow-minded" attitude in those threads when thinking about Ryanair. Many of those "secondary" airports serve also cities other than the one it takes the name from or serves destinations not offered from the main airport. Ryanair with a HHN-GRO is not trying to compete with Lufthansa BCN-FRA. That would be silly.

I agree with you to a point, but that does not excuse the use of the term 'Frankfurt Hahn'. If Hahn has it's own catchment area then that is what should be named after. Naming Hahn after Frankfurt just confuses the unsuspecting occasional traveler when they are planning their journey and anyone who thinks they may land remotely near to the City of Frankfurt are likely to avoid FR forever just like I do because they flew me to Lubeck rather than Hamburg and it cost me €120 in a taxi. I would only ever fly them again if MOL returns my €120 and that is not going to happen anytime soon.

The big problem HHN, Weeze, Baden-Baden, CGN, DUS, STR and some other airports in Germany within 2 hours drive from the borders have is the German aviation tax. Next week there will be a hearing at the German constitutional court if this tax is illegal and disadvantaging those airports (where passengers can easily drive across an international border to catch a flight there). Before the introduction of the tax HHN had a lot of passengers from Luxembourg, France, southern Belgium and the southern Netherlands, who are now missing. It is not as easy to just drive from FRA, MUC, HAM or BRE across a border to catch a cheaper flight. TXL and BER are close to the Polish border, but there is no competitive airport on the other side. LH doesn't care much about the tax because it gets paid by the passengers and those in the catchment areas of FRA and MUC don't have a real alternative. Also don't forget that, even if there are no big cities around here, many people live in rural areas here as well (the villages and smalltowns are about 5 km apart), for whom a drive to FRA or CGN is quite inconvenient. Last monday during a press conference in HHN, O'Leary has announced that he makes future developments in Germany depending on the decision of the German constitutional court and that he would open new routes and base more aircraft here if the tax gets abolished.

One thing I have heard is that onboard sales on flights from HHN are pretty low. O'Leary has to understand that FR's on size fits all mentality doesn't work everywhere. First, the prices for food onboard might be ok as compared to prices in the UK and Ireland, but here most people would consider them to be too high. Germans rather save on the flight and spend their money at the destination. Secondly the goods sold as duty free are more aimed at the taste of British or Irish chavs and most people here simply don't like them.

Jan

Quoting na (Reply 8): Beside that, at Hahn you have no service whatsoever in the early morning or late evening, when the cheap flights are departing. No wonder Hahn is in the red.

This has mostly to do with incompetent management, cronyism, nepotism, corruption and nice local cartells, disappeared moneys and local monopolies, into which politicians of both big German political parties (the Social Democrats on state level and the conservative Christian Democrats on county level) are involved. The management of HHN has been replaced and the state prosecutors are investigating. As with the scandal around the Nürburgring car race track, some politicians and crooked businesmen might end up in jail.

Jan

Apparently they're cutting 36 departures per week from Oslo/Rygge as well. Living 15 minutes away from Rygge that's kinda sad. I love travelling and having Ryanair next door has been very helpful. Still, if they replace them with routes from OSL, that would make up for "the damage".

[quote=MD11Engineer,reply=16]Secondly the goods sold as duty free are more aimed at the taste of British or Irish chavs and most people here simply don't like them.[/quot

Its their target market.............! lol

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 13): It is always the same "narrow-minded" attitude in those threads when thinking about Ryanair. Many of those "secondary" airports serve also cities other than the one it takes the name from or serves destinations not offered from the main airport

I'd buy it if it weren't Ryanair themselves doing the renaming, or asking for it.

Any idea when FR will start operations at CDG or ORY? I read that it was discussed.

Quoting [email protected] (Reply 4): It dropped 222 routes for this summer and started 138 - so a net loss of 84

This is the real number that should be considered, but 222 sells better. And this "drop" is really more related to the reshuffling and rearranging of routes. With FR having hit its expansion limit due to fleet size, I guess they are reconcentrating on core routes until more a/c arrive. And some a/c are also being moved to counter Vueling at BRU and FCO.

Quoting Boysteve (Reply 15): they flew me to Lubeck rather than Hamburg and it cost me €120 in a taxi. I would only ever fly them again if MOL returns my €120 and that is not going to happen anytime soon.

Well, that was really your choice since there is an excellent bus connection, timed with the Wizz & Ryanair flights, for a tenth of that price. And LBC is in fact very well placed to serve the northern Hamburg catchment area; it is similarly far from Hamburg than STN is from London or MUC from Munich, and certainly among the least remote airports in the FR network.

Quoting blueflyer (Reply 11): The article is a story about a bunch of numbers without context. Ryanair's "increase" in BRU has one purpose and one purpose only, trying to block Vueling's expansion in BRU. There is no doubt that if they are successful, Ryanair will close BRU and again serve only CRL. Ryanair is so uninterested in making BRU work from a financial standpoint, they didn't even try and ask for a cent in subsidies, tax breaks, incentives, bribe, whatever... from the airport, the regional government or anyone else before showing up. Heck airport authorities found out officially (rumors were floating) from Ryanair literally 5 minutes before a press conference!

Ryanair does not need to get out of CRL. They probably get a lot of benefits from the Wallonian government just to be there (otherwise the new fancy terminal would be a desert).

CRL has many destinations that otherwise are not replicated at BRU. Plenty of secondary airports in France, Spain, Italy or Eastern Europe are only served from Charleroi in Belgium, so no need to move that to BRU. Also CRL is not really that far from Brussels anyway, and it is quite a comfortable terminal IMO (compared to those endless corridors at BRU).

Also don't forget that CRL serves also as airport for Lille; LIL is a tiny airport with not many flights and otherwise the other alternatives are the Paris area airports which are way farther and are much incovenient to get in and out. Of course there is the high-speed train from Lille to CDG but that makes more economic sense for long-haul services.

Again, I think there is this misconception here that those airports serve only the main city they take the name from... their catchment area is often different and tap different geographical markets even if there is some overlapping.

Quoting blueflyer (Reply 20): I'd buy it if it weren't Ryanair themselves doing the renaming, or asking for it.

That is the chicken and the egg dilemma. Many of those airports are the first to rename themselves. Hahn is officially called "Frankfurt-Hahn Airport". Charleroi is "Brussels South Charleroi Airport".

When I saw this title I thought "well, Ryanair don't offer connections!". I wonder if they should though, because now as they are such a big airline it would be useful, for example, to fly from Morocco to its destinations in Europe via London/Madrid/Italy. Even if there was a supplement for this service (through-checking bags etc), it would still be a lot cheaper than the rip-off fares the legacy carriers are still getting away with (for example 400€ from Casablance to Istanbul one-way). Which shows how much they love ripping people off wherever they still can.

Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 13): Then dualities like BCN/GRO are quite smart IMO. BCN gets the "main" destinations where it has to compete with the likes of Vueling, easyJet and legacies. GRO gets "holiday" flights (Costa Brava around GRO is a major tourism spot) and those "remote" flights with no competition from BCN (so it is you fly from GRO or you have to connect). So Ryanair can tap into two different markets.

You hit the nail on the head here.

Quoting blueflyer (Reply 20): Quoting SCQ83 (Reply 13): It is always the same "narrow-minded" attitude in those threads when thinking about Ryanair. Many of those "secondary" airports serve also cities other than the one it takes the name from or serves destinations not offered from the main airport I'd buy it if it weren't Ryanair themselves doing the renaming, or asking for it.

As for HHN, the name Frankfurt-Hahn has come due to it's history:
After the USAF closed HHN as an airbase, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate took over. Now the state government didn't
have any experience in running airports, so they got Fraport, the owner of FRA to do the job. At this time Fraport was still worried about strict curfews and a rejection of the application to build the new runway, so they planned to use HHN as a satellite airport for FRA and coined the name "Frankfurt-Hahn" for it. Before it was called "Hunsrück-Moselle" airport.

Jan

I was amused at the mendacity displayed by Michael O'Leary. Most of these routes are being cut to smaller out-of-the-way markets. And they're being cut because the EU outlawed the use of subsidies by those airports to lure outfits like Ryanair in. It is testimony to the market distortions that corporate welfare can cause. Were it not for tax breaks, for example, Boeing would not be in South Carolina.

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 26): At this time Fraport was still worried about strict curfews and a rejection of the application to build the new runway, so they planned to use HHN as a satellite airport for FRA and coined the name "Frankfurt-Hahn" for it.

IIRC, LH along with FR both agreed to that.

Quoting toxtethogrady (Reply 27): I was amused at the mendacity displayed by Michael O'Leary. Most of these routes are being cut to smaller out-of-the-way markets. And they're being cut because the EU outlawed the use of subsidies by those airports to lure outfits like Ryanair in. It is testimony to the market distortions that corporate welfare can cause. Were it not for tax breaks, for example, Boeing would not be in South Carolina.

Part of it is the need to prevent the rural regions from depopulating by creating jobs. HHN by itself has been making a loss (though a lot of it came from incompetent and corrupt management and politicians), but the airport itself has been good for the region by creating jobs, not just at the airport, but also with e.g. freight companies and in the surrounding villages and smalltowns. If one looks at the total economy of the region, the airport was a success, since there are now more people with jobs, paying taxes, who else would have been on the dole. That O'Leary is taking full advantage of it and has been taking HHN hostage, is another matter.

Jan

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 29): If one looks at the total economy of the region, the airport was a success, since there are now more people with jobs, paying taxes, who else would have been on the dole.

My impression was this raised competition issues that the EU objected to (similar to prohibitions on states being able to bail out their loss-making airlines). From that standpoint, there's an indifference to how much benefit a region derives as a result.

Of course, the ban of state subsidies helps lagely the big, established airports, which can simply crush newcomers on the market with their economoc power. But again, Europe has a large population in rural areas as well and a de-population due to no jobs there helps nobody. Already now house prices in the region around HHN are staggering low (you can get yourself a former farm for a few 10.000 Euros, you jst need to spend a bit on renovation and redecoration) because young people move away and the old people are dying out.

Jan

Quoting r2rho (Reply 22): Well, that was really your choice since there is an excellent bus connection, timed with the Wizz & Ryanair flights, for a tenth of that price. And LBC is in fact very well placed to serve the northern Hamburg catchment area; it is similarly far from Hamburg than STN is from London or MUC from Munich, and certainly among the least remote airports in the FR network.

Well thank you for jumping to conclusions that you know absolutely nothing about! Yes there was a coach connection that I intended to catch, but unfortunately only one with ~50 seats. The FR 738 contains 189 seats. Whoever had only hand baggage got the 50 seats and everyone with checked baggage had to get a taxi or wait 4 hours for the next FR arrival and coach. Hopefully you are now better informed of the circumstances of the day.