Ryan Air

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths :

- Brand name: Ryanair through its 14 years in the LCC market has developed a very well recognised Brand name.

- Benefits from low airport charges: these aid the low base Ryanair benefits form

- Has first mover advantage on regional airports: acts as a barrier to entry

- Internet site (94% booking) www.ryanair.com: lowers the cost of distribution as over the phone booking are more costly. Eliminates the need of travel agents

- High seat density

- All Boeing aircraft: a uniform fleet saves on maintenance and training costs

- Fast turn-around

- High service performance: punctual, high rate of flight completion, low baggage loss, these give a good image of the company’s reliability.

- Modernised fleet which leads to less expensive maintenance: will become more uniform with only one model (737-800), also newer planes will require less maintenance.

- High aircraft utilization: Ryanair flies its planes for longer thus generating more revenue from its assets.

- Fuel and other risks hedging

- Small headquarters: low on over beads

- Point to point: no hub and spoke, lowers cost as no through services required

- Leading low cost airline

- Strong revenue growth

- Business strategy

- Air Lingus possible acquisition

Weaknesses:

- Prone to bad press: Ryanair is perceived as arrogant and the slightest incident gets a lot of press coverage.

- Niche market: restricted expansion possibility

- Distance of some regional airports from advertised destination: over time customers may find this a big inconvenience.

- Poor service: people, skills.

- Ryanair is extremely sensitive to changes in charges (increase in fare value)

- Weakening employee relations

- Lake of scale

Opportunities:

- EU enlargement: there will be a lot of new destinations opened up

- Still potential to capture market share: The LCC market share could more than double

- Benefits from less exposure to geopolitical risks: as only really operates in Europe

- Economic slowdown actually helps Ryanair: change in corporate culture, �steals’ customers from traditional carriers as they seek lower fares

- Launch of new routes

- Fleet expansion

- Global airline market

- constant increase in the network

- many acquisitions and fusions

- increase in the traffic in the future (+25% for 2015)

- development of the booking by Internet

Threats:

- Dependence on oil markets: fuel costs depend on the oil market

- Dependence on economic cycle

- Increase of low fare competition

- European court decision: this may make expansion more difficult and costs rise in the future

- Limited growth on the South European market

- Regional airports gain bargaining power for “second round”

- Customers are very price sensitive

- Raynair and EasyJet limit one another’s growth “rout wise”, need for peaceful co-existence, or routes could become battleground

- Face