Ryanair to feed passengers onto rival airlines
Ryanair is planning to provide transfer connections for rival airlines’ long-haul services for the first time since its launch 30 years ago.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary has confirmed he is in talks British Airways, Aer Lingus, Virgin Atlantic, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Portugal’s TAP about feeding traffic into their flights.
He said Ryanair, which has until now offered only point-to-point services, could begin transferring passengers to Aer Lingus by the end of this year, possibly by November.
He told Reuters that Ryanair, which has just sold its near 30% stake in Aer Lingus to BA’s parent IAG, could become a feeder for other long-haul airlines over the next five to 10 years.
O’Leary told the news organisation: "The advantage for them is they would get much cheaper short-haul feed than they would from anybody else, but what they have to get themselves mentally over is that they would have to take responsibility for missed connections."
He said Ryanair would, however, accommodate passengers who miss their initial connection on later flights.
He estimated that low-cost carriers, including Ryanair, could feed up to half of their passengers into long-haul services within a decade.
O’Leary claimed Ryanair has spoken to TAP about feeding traffic from Lisbon and to Norwegian and Virgin about flights at Gatwick.
He also said he had talked with IAG about the possibility of working together at Stansted if the latter were to ever launch flights from the Essex airport.
Earlier today, Ryanair announced a new partnership with CarTrawler to launch Ryanair Car Hire, replacing its previous arrangement with Hertz.
It said the deal with the online car rental aggregator would allow customers to book vehicles with 1,500 agents in 30,000 locations.
Hertz abruptly terminated its relationship with the low-cost carrier last month. The new arrangement with CarTrawler will go live on ryanair.com on September 1.
Announcing the tie-up, O’Leary said: "Following an extensive tender process, Ryanair is pleased to partner with CarTrawler, who offer the best conversion rate in the business, as we launch Ryanair Car Hire, offering the widest range and best value car rental service to our 103m customers.
"This is the latest in a series of customer experience improvements under our "Always Getting Better" programme. Ryanair customers already enjoy the lowest fares in Europe and our partnership with CarTrawler will guarantee them the lowest car hire prices as well, every time they fly with us."
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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