Low-cost carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair could soon be used by legacy airlines to outsource their short-haul routes to cut costs, says Ryanair chief executive.
Michael O’Leary said the change could happen in the next decade as it’s becoming too expensive for carriers such as British Airways and Air France-KLM to compete on point-to-point routes.
“If you go forward in Europe in the next five or 10 years, I think the low-cost carriers, mostly ourselves and Easyjet will do a lot more feeding of major airlines,” O’Leary said.
Certain legacy carriers such as Lufthansa and Air France already use their own low-cost subsidiaries to operate short-haul services in an attempt to save money on these routes.
According to Reuters, O’Leary said it was possible that Ryanair could fly into Heathrow, which is not currently used by budget airlines, if it was contracted to do so by British Airways. However, for the moment he has ruled out the airport along with Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt because of costs and turnaround time.
O’Leary didn’t comment on IAG’s bids to buy Aer Lingus. The deal would require the approval of Ryanair, which owns a 29.8 per cent stake in Aer Lingus, the Irish government, which has a 25 per cent stake, and the European Commission.
“We would clearly give due consideration to any offer that was made by anybody for our stake, but that’s not necessarily that we’d be happy to sell it,” O’Leary said.