Ryanair to battle Aer Lingus on sun routes

By Niamh Hennessy

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

RYANAIR is expected to go head-to-head with Aer Lingus in a battle for holiday-makers with plans for a number of low-fare routes from Cork to sun destinations.

The flights could be on offer for as little as €60 return as the airline pledges to undercut Aer Lingus prices.

Ryanair’s chief executive Michael O’Leary is jetting into Cork this morning where he is expected to make the announcement.

Likely destinations from Cork could include Malaga and Alicante in Spain and Faro in Portugal. The airline is also likely to operate flights to the Canary Islands and is also expected to base an aircraft at Cork airport.

Mr O’Leary said yesterday Ryanair plans to "swamp" the sun destination market over the summer months with a raft of low fares. "We have 11 aircraft to allocate for the summer and there’s a number of airports bidding for them," he said. Aer Lingus already operates flights from Cork to Alicante, Faro, Lanzarote, Malaga and Tenerife.

Mr O’Leary said Ryanair will "explode" Aer Lingus’s market. He said fares to sun destinations will be higher than average but lower than others charge in those markets. He added Spain is an "amazing market" for the airline and has been a "fantastic success," with high load factors and good yields. Spain is proving to be an increasingly important market for Ryanair, especially given that the Government there has confirmed that its airport discount scheme will continue until at least March 2012. Ryanair will operate 53 Canary Island routes this summer. It will begin a route from Dublin to Fuerteventura from March.

In July last year, Ryanair announced it would be offering flights from Shannon and Dublin to Lanzarote and Gran Canaria. The flights were initially on offer for as little as €60 return.

This news came as Ryanair announced its Irish customers can expect to pay more for their flights this year as they absorb the €10 Government travel tax.

Ryanair announced third quarter results of almost €11 million yesterday. Analysts had expected losses of around €35m for the three months to the end of December 2009 compared with losses of €118.8m a year earlier.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, February 02, 2010