Sometimes Ryanair luxuriates in providing grist to the rumour mill and its current loud whispers which suggest it's moving ever closer to a codeshare agreement with a long-haul carrier could certainly give corporates ideas.
Long-haul carriers such as Virgin Atlantic can operate successfully on long-haul routes for there is point-to-point demand such as, say, London-San Francisco or London-Washington. On the other hand, long-haul carriers such as Virgin Atlantic, which pre the Delta Air Lines tie-up did not have a complementary short-haul network such as, say, Air France-KLM or Lufthansa do, can have problems when they launch routes such as, say, London-Chicago. Before it partnered with Delta Virgin had tried unsuccessfully twice to create a viable route to Chicago.
The problem is that a lot of traffic to Chicago is connecting traffic so it is essential for the long-haul airline to have a partner with a short-haul network such as Lufthansa and United.
The same principles about point-to-point and connecting traffic profiles apply on this side of the pond. For years the domestic and short-haul networks of the traditional carriers fed traffic into the large hub airports for the lucrative long-haul flights. But those services are shrinking with European short-haul traffic leakage to low-cost carriers such as easyJet and Ryanair.
It is now quite acceptable and standard practice for business travellers to use low-cost carriers on short-haul routes.
However, when it comes to flying to a destination that requires a connection it is costly and inconvenient for travellers to fly on two separate carriers. If nothing else, there is baggage to collect after the first leg before checking-in for the journey sector.
For corporates this is a dilemma. Businesses and business travellers' homes are not all located next to Schiphol, Frankfurt or Heathrow airports. Many business travellers have to fly into hubs such as these in order to access a service to their final destination. In the past this was not a great issue because these carriers were commonly used for short-haul business as well as long-haul. But, as the statistics show, more and more corporates are using the likes of easyJet.
Not long ago Ryanair noticed how much business traffic was helping easyJet's results. It has now embarked on a similar strategy of luring corporate traffic. Airports and route network are two of the most important factors in doing this.
A codeshare with a long-haul carrier which offers a business service and flies to business destinations could catapult Ryanair into being that business carrier that it doubtless yearns to be.
And a low-cost-long-haul hook-up just might also deliver efficiencies to corporate programmes.