Ryanair looks to fly to Russia, Israel and Turkey

Ryanair is looking at launching budget flights to new markets including Russia, Israel and Turkey as part of its drive to grow passenger numbers.

The airline wants to attract more business travellers, groups and families to increase passenger numbers to 110 million by 2019.

New head of corporate travel and groups Lesley Kane said the airline was already talking to several airports in new destinations about the launch of services in the near future.

It has ordered 175 new aircraft, the first of which will be delivered in September, which will be used to service new routes.

Speaking in London yesterday to launch a range of new initiatives, chief executive Michael O’Leary admitted the airline had no firm plans to fly to the US due to a lack of affordable aircraft – and he said any transatlantic flights launched in the future would be operated by a sister brand – but Kane said the airline was eager to fly to more medium-haul destinations.

"We are talking to new airports, a lot of which are key business airports, some of which are in totally new markets which are actively looking to encourage Ryanair to fly there," said Kane.

She said that as the airline looks to grow, it will be focusing on adding high frequencies to major airports to capture a greater share of the higher-spending business travel market.

"We aim to grow from 81.5 million passengers this year to 110 million by 2019 and that growth has to come from somewhere," she said. "We have recognised that there is a huge potential in the corporate market and we are going to actively target these passengers."

Currently just 22% or 19 million of Ryanair’s passengers are business travellers but the airline is hoping to increase this to 38 million within five years.

It has already announced that next winter it will have aircraft based in Athens, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon, all key business travel destinations. From most of these it will offer multiple flights to Stansted.

It has also made it easier for the trade to book its flights by loading fares on to Travelport and Kane said the airline was still talking to Sabre and Amadeus with the hope of launching its fares on at least one of them from the autumn.

It has agreed with Travelport that it will be the sole GDS distributor of Ryanair’s flights until the end of the summer.

Kane admitted that as it costs Ryanair more to sell via GDSs, they will never have access to Ryanair’s cheapest fares of £9.99 and £15.99, which will always be available on ryanair.com. Instead, fares on GDSs will start at about £28, she said.

The airline launched a group product in January, which allows name changes up to 14 days before the date of departure, and claimed this had proved more popular than it first envisaged.

It is planning to follow this with the launch a flexible business class fare later this year – possibly in June, said Kane  – which will allow passengers to turn up at the airport and get on the next available flight.

It will also fast track passengers through major airports, provide a 15k baggage allowance and might include other perks not yet confirmed.

Admitting that flying with Ryanair "has been hell" for families in the past, Kane said the airline would launch more child-friendly products later in the year.

Already children are allowed to carry an extra bag or teddy bear on board, and the airline is considering giveaways such as free allocated seating for children to sit next to their parents.

"We will be looking at all sorts of ways to make it easier to travel with kids," added Kane.

by Linsey McNeill