Ryanair pledge will see regional business soar
BUDGET airline Ryanair has confirmed its commitment to Greater Manchester as it announced its 2020 summer schedule.
The airline, which employs 400 people in Manchester, said it will grow passenger numbers by two to three per cent to 5.5m in the region with a total of 64 routes from Manchester Airport next year.
Speaking to BusinessLive, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “Manchester has always been an important region for us.
“It is the second city of England, and as someone who has lived in Manchester, I can see it’s a city that has been transformed and is growing.
“It’s great to see the transformation work going on at Manchester Airport making the city an attractive place to visit and an attractive destination to come and do business.
“The office space market here is desirable and affordable too making it cheaper than London to do business, and I can’t see that changing.
“As the airport grows, we will grow with it.”
Mr Jacobs said it’s been a challenging time for airlines as seen by the recent collapse of Thomas Cook and warned that smaller airlines could face a similar future.
“Fuel has been a big challenge for the industry.
“As a bigger airline we have bought our fuel for the next 12 months already but not everyone can do the same.
“The market has been challenging for the industry and smaller airlines with unhealthy balance sheets will go bust.”
He added: “The market is also changing. People are not buying package holidays like they use to and are buying flights and hotels separately.
“At least 95 per cent of flights are booked directly from our website or app, our customers are not going through third parties and we are not selling commission, which means we can keep our costs low.
“What we do best and what we are good at is providing short haul, low cost products and we’re the number one airline for that.”
Asked about holiday trends from Manchester, Mr Jacobs said Spain remained a popular destination, but increasingly Italy and Greece were summer hotspots alongside weekend city breaks. He said they’d also since an increase in business travel.