Ryanair posts big rise in 1/2 Year Profits

Sticking to the playbook. Well done the team over at FR.

The numbers of course are staggering. Well on the way to a 50 mil pax plus airline this year- the underlying numbers show some clear success in the strategy.

Revenues grew by 24% to €1.6bn (£1.1bn), which included ancillary revenues of €252m (£175.5m), up 54%. This meant that ancillaries accounted for 15.8% of total revenues, versus the airline’s target of 20%. This is the key to the long term success of FR. For a conventional airline this number is essentially zero as no additional revenues are booked in this manner. This only now shows how much this is worth and how successful Ryanair has been at pursuing the growth of the revenue base not based on RPMs/ASMs and CASMs.

We believe that leveraging the individual passenger as the core metric is the fundemental differentiator between the true LCC model and the legacy one. Any airline still clinging to their outdated metrics deserves to be shot.

Those of you who are regular readers - know am not a big fan of the Ryanair service but I totally buy into the model and am quite happy to put up with the poor service in exchange for a reliable timetable and a low price. This is the true credo.

Cheers

Timothy

AIr Asia X delays UK launch till Q4 2008

As reported in DowJones News Wires, KL-based AirAsia X, 20% owned by the Virgin Group, plans to start services to London or Manchester in Q408. The LCC’s chief executive, Azran Osman-Rani, told Dow Jones Newswires it would acquire 50 Airbus A350s or Boeing 787-10s to handle its ongoing expansion.

Those interim A330s are not all going to fly to the Gold Coast so where are they going? Howeve a big twin like A330 would have to stretch REALLY hard to make it to the UK.

Enquiring minds want to know.

Cheers

Timothy

Southwest returns to Worldspan after many years

Southwest will be returning to participation in Worldspan announced today as part of their ongoing campaign to court the business traveler.

However Worldspan even under Travelport ownership is not known as a major corporate agency system, nor do they have deep penetration among agencies in WN's key markets. So why?

Two reasons:

Reason 1 - Southwest needs all the bookings they can get - with Galileo and Worldspan under joint ownership (but NOT common platforms), Travelport made them an offer they couldnt refuse.

Reason 2 - Southwest needs a back door capability to reach the OTAs who are still using Worldspan.

It has been a long time coming. Now if only Southwest would announce something more meatier. We still dont have much clue to their long term strategy change.