Ryanair says push into Germany ahead of schedule

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, is capturing market share quicker than expected in Germany, an executive said yesterday.

Ryanair, which is expanding routes out of Cologne and Berlin in particular, ended 2015 with a 5% share of the German air travel market and expects that to rise to between 8% and 10% this year, Kenny Jacobs, chief marketing officer, said on the sidelines of the ITB travel fair in Berlin.

“Michael has said we’ll get to 20% within a five-year period but so far we’re ahead of that projection,” he said, referring to Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary.

Ryanair is also not ruling out flying out of Frankfurt in the future, if it could get the right deal, Mr Jacobs said.

Mr O’Leary has often said Frankfurt was one of the few airports Ryanair could not fly out of due to high fees and lengthy turnaround times.

“It’s a possibility,” Mr Jacobs said, although he added Ryanair did not need to fly from Frankfurt or Munich, Germany’s two largest airports, to reach the 20% market share target.

In Germany, alongside Berlin and Cologne, Ryanair is targeting smaller airports such as Nuremberg and speaking to businesses in the area such as Adidas and Audi to inform its route decisions, part of a trend for budget carriers to target corporate travel.

Mr Jacobs said while the German market was currently underserved by low-cost carriers, Frankfurt and Munich would eventually have to increase their low-cost flights.

Reuters