There are whispers in the air that budget airline Ryanair could soon be offering package holidays, as the CEO Michael O’Leary says he wouldn’t rule it out.
While the Irish businessman has previously said package holidays would be a distraction from Ryanair’s goal of being the leader in European short-haul travel, there are suggestions that it could now look more favorable.
According to The Telegraph, O’Leary said: “I wouldn’t rule out setting up a holidays division.
“The holiday product is probably a reasonable way of charging higher fares and yields and for wrapping it into a package.”
He also said that there was “some truth” to the idea that all-inclusive holidays have proved to be popular this year.
“Accommodation in the Canaries, Spain, Italy, Greece, has been appreciably more expensive, and that has maybe pushed more people into these kinds of holiday packages.”
Other UK airlines are now running package holidays
Competitors to Ryanair are already cementing their position in the package holiday market, like EasyJet Holidays which was relaunched in 2019. Jet2 now runs holiday packages too, with both airlines operating in the affordable travel space within the UK.
Speaking about his competition, Michael O’Leary said: “Holidays are a reasonable way for them to try to monetise that scarce capacity at expensive airports. We on the other hand are taking lots of new aircraft and still expanding.”
The possibility of Ryanair package holidays won’t be coming anytime soon though as the CEO said he wouldn’t reconsider launching it until the company has taken delivery of all 350 aircraft on order from Boeing.
In his conversation with The Telegraph, he said the new arrivals are “sufficient for it to grow traffic aggressively without departing from the existing model.”
If the last comment continues to be true, it could be some years before the holiday division is reconsidered.
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