Airline puts Manchester at centre of bid for top slot

BOSSES at budget airline Ryanair are trumpeting Manchester Airport as integral to its long term goal of becoming the UK’s number one passenger carrier.

Chief marketing and technical officers Kenny Jacobs and John Hurley jetted in as the airline launched its 30th birthday celebrations to underline the importance of the airport to its ambitions.

High on the agenda was also the continuing attempt to soften its reputation for adopting an uncompromising approach towards customers.

Mr Jacobs said business travel from the Manchester was expected to enjoy double digit growth this year, although he admitted expansion at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport – chiefly a leisure only facility – would be slower.

“Manchester is big business for us, one of our fastest growing airports in Europe,” said Mr Jacobs. “We will be operating seven aircraft on 37 routes and running 200 flights a week in 2015.

“In particular, business travel is one of our faster growing markets with flights to Madrid, Dublin, Brussels and Eindhoven available to users.”

Other new routes starting in April include Shannon, Stuttgart and Hania in Greece.

Ryanair says it went from the number three ranked airline in the UK to number two in 2014 and is targeting top slot within the next 24 months.

“What has changed is that Ryanair has always been the cheapest, but the service was a little rough around the edges,” said Mr Jacobs.

Customers are now allowed to take two bags on board and there is allocated seating. About 25m euro (£20m) has also been spent, including on an overhaul of its website that has seen it reduce the transaction from 17 clicks down to just five to book a flight.

According to MrJacobs, Ryanair has 15% of the total traffic in and out of Manchester and 15% market share in Europe and is predicting the volume of customers this year will rise from 81m to 90m.

Mr Jacobs, however, was less gushing about the facility at Liverpool.
“Manchester and Liverpool work hand in hand although business is growing slow for us at Liverpool,” he said.

“There is much more demand for business travel from Manchester, whereas Liverpool’s routes are primarily for leisure.”

Ryanair’s first ever flight took off from Waterford in Ireland to London Gatwick in May, 1985, and it now has 1,600 daily flights across Europe and North Africa.