Ryanair was founded in 1985 by the Ryan family to provide scheduled passenger airline services between Ireland and the UK, as an alternative to the then state monopoly carrier, Aer Lingus. It started out a full service conventional airline, with two classes of seating and leasing three different types of aircraft. However despite growth in the passenger volumes financial problems were of a growing concern. In its fight to survive the airline went through a dramatic restyle to become Europe's first low fares, no frills carrier, built on the model of Southwest Airlines.
When I began my research into Ryanair I thought it best to start at the core of the company. I searched for a mission statement to provide me with an insight into the thinking behind the name Ryanair. However it was hard to find an actual mission statement but what was crystal clear was the company's main objective. Ryanair's objective is to maintain its position as Europe's leading low fares airline, operating frequent point-to-point flights on short-haul flights, mainly out of regional and secondary airports.
The heart of Ryanair's strategy is based on providing a no frills service with low fares designed to stimulate demand, particularly from budget conscious leisure and business travellers who might otherwise have used alternative forms of transportation or who might not travelled at all. Following on from this I looked at the external environment that affects Ryanair, to get a brief idea of the possible opportunities and threats.
In order for me to identify opportunities and threats within Ryanair's competitive environment I am looking at Porters Five Forces. His model focuses on five forces that shape competition within an industry: (1) the risk of entry by potential competitors ...