Ryanair CEO, Michael O”Leary, says that any eventual launch of a long-haul airline by the Irish carrier, would have to operate a business class service equivalent to, or better than, Virgin Atlantic”s current offering.
Speaking to media at today”s (5 June) unveiling of Ryanair”s record profits of ”401m, O”Leary nonetheless cautioned that the economic conditions would have to be right in order to secure the best aircraft for a long-haul carrier.
”If there is a downturn in the industry and we can procure a series of long-haul, cheap aircraft, there is an opportunity to set up a stand-alone company, [but] which will not be Ryanair,” he said. ”We are talking to Boeing and Airbus, but there is no point in talking to anyone else.
”We could operate out of six to eight bases in Europe to the US, offering ”10 fares as we are still growing and people are coming to us in their millions. It would have to have a very good business class ” better than Virgin Atlantic.”
O”Leary did not elaborate as to how the new airline would offer superior business class to that of Virgin ” long considered to have set the industry benchmark in terms of front end quality with Upper Class - but he was at pains to point out that it had to be a completely separate entity.
”We would have to run the carriers differently ” nobody in aviation history has ever run a long-haul operation next to short-haul,” he said. ”Virgin has had three or four goes but they have all failed."
And the Ryanair boss also warned against becoming too euphoric concerning the recently-concluded Open Skies deal between the European Union (EU) and the US, that allows EU carriers to operate a range of transatlantic services from next March.
”There is Open Skies but that does not mean that the French or Spanish will allow free access to airports or that BAA will [equally] allow access,” he added.
Ruling himself out of the running to head up the new carrier, O”Leary hinted that Ryanair could potentially feed traffic from its current operation to any long-haul airline. ”There would be significant opportunities for both it [new carrier] and Ryanair to operate from similar large European bases,” he said.