Budget airline industry has been profitable during last decade, and particularly Ryanair, as the largest European budget airline company has been vital in this area. Its success in past, issuses nowadays and importantly the sustainablility has drawn significant attention and offered a great oppourtunity for research. This case study will analysis the budget airline through its business model, evironment and industry and finally focus on Ryanair’s strategy position in order to explore its sustainability in future. The framework is briefly illustrated by following figure.
Figure 1: Brief Framework of this Case Study
The budget airline business model The first company in history to suggest the budget airline business model to the world was Southwest Airlines (SWA) in Texas, USA. At the beginning of 1970s, this company have launched first flights between three major cities in Texas i.e. Houston, Dallas and San Antonio at a price of 20 dollars, which was initiative at that time. It marked itself as budget airline and initiates a business model allowing it to offer scheduled flights service at a very low fare. It would focus on short-distance flights of typically 600 km or one hour with high traffic efficiency. Many strategic approaches of budget airline business model’s operations differ from the more traditional of full service airlines model. 6 main factors can be identified, which are illustrated in the table below:
Budget airline | Full service airlines | | | Lower overall service levels | Higher overall service levels | | | | | Rapid turnaround times | Slower turnaround times | | | Similar fleet | Diversified fleet | | | | | Higher density of seat | Lower density of seat | | | Secondary / smaller airports | Major airports | | | More internet and direct booking and
