Wednesday 11 May 2016

IRELAND: Ryanair To Attract More Customers Travel Agents

Ryanair has announced it is to introduce an upgraded leisure product 'for well-heeled leisure travellers' and a dedicated website for groups this summer, saying it wanted to lure customers who would normally go to travel agents.

The airline, which forecast it will overtake easyJet as the UK's biggest airline this year, is also planning to sell more ancillary products on the Ryanair app, which will include a 'one flick' payment, making it easier to buy services such as car hire, flight upgrades, airport parking and transfers on the move.

The app will also include a Rate My Flight tool for the first time to give Ryanair immediate customer feedback.

Boss Michael O'Leary said the carrier, which grew 17% in 2015, was aiming to grow from 106 million passengers in the last year to the end of March to 113 million this year.

"We will be the biggest airline in each of our markets in Europe except France," said O'Leary.

Speaking in Dublin at the launch of the third year of the airline's 'Always Getting Better' service enhancement campaign, O'Leary said the airline's unit costs remained the lowest in the industry at €29 per passenger, compared with €51 per passenger at easyJet.

"One of the concerns when we launched 'Always Getting Better' was that we got nicer our unit costs and our fares would rise, but they haven't, they've got lower," said O'Leary.

He said he expected fares to continue to fall this year as the airline will benefit from €430 million saving on its fuel costs due to lower oil prices.

However, the airline is expecting to attract more higher yield passengers with the launch of Leisure Plus, will give passengers 20kg baggage allowance, auto check in and priority boarding.

O'Leary said the upgraded fare was designed for 'well-heeled passengers' who want some but not all of the benefits of the airline's Business Plus product.

"They want things like priority boarding and auto check in but they don't need a flexibile ticket," he said.

It will launch from July and costs from €43.99.

At the same time, Ryanair has made changes to its Business Plus product following customer feedback, which it says revealed corporate customers aren't bothered about the free check in baggage allowance. Instead, it has increased ticket flexibility to allow customers to change their tickets up to two days before and after their original flight times.

Other changes to be introduced as Ryanair enters the third year of its 'Always Getting Better' campaign include a revamp of its interiors to give one-inch more legroom, more headspace and larger windows and it has reduced the number of bag check in options to six.

The airline is also going to give discounts to groups on a dedicated website for the first time, which chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said was to prevent them from going to travel agents 'who generally steer them towards a legacy carrier'.

In Ireland, the airline is introducing a bonded travel agent for school trips, saying it would save children 'millions'.

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