Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

It was only when the Irish airline decided to commit lock stock and smoking barrels to Stansted that the Essex hub began to realise its enormous potential.

Now the airline is notching repeatedly impressive financial results and growing both its fleet and the extent of its European operations. The recent decision to take on Lufthansa in its own back yard with the launch of a Frankfurt base reflects the airline’s confidence in its business model.

Ryanair, a former Growth & Expansion category winner in the East of England Business Awards, is tilting for glory in the same category again this year, as well as in the Best Quoted Company section.

It began operations back in 1985 with the launch of a daily flight on a 15 seater turbo prop aircraft between Waterford and Gatwick. In the company’s first year, its 57 employees carried just over 5,000 passengers on its one route.

In 1986, Ryanair broke the high fare cartel - then operated by the two state airlines Aer Lingus and British Airways on the Dublin-London route. Ryanair was the first European airline specifically set up to offer low fares on short-haul intra-European routes.

By 1989 Ryanair employed 350 people, operated 14 aircraft and was carrying 600,000 passengers a year, but had managed to lose £20m in just four years.

The seeds of the current dramatic growth were sown in the early ’90s - ironically with radical cutbacks. A new management team overhauled the airline, cut back from 19 to just 5 routes, the turbo prop aircraft were disposed of, and airfares across the remaining network were substantially reduced with 70 per cent of all seats offered at the two lowest fares.

By 1991, Ryanair was operating an all jet fleet of 6 BAC 1-11 aircraft, employing 350 people, carrying 700,000 passengers on just five routes, and it had recorded its first ever profit, despite the damage done to the airline industry by the Gulf War.

The rest is a remarkable slice of aviation history. The fleet has been continually upgraded to the finest aircraft, the routes network has burgeoned throughout Europe and still chief executive Michael O’Leary and his team put the major carriers to shame with a no-frills strategy.

Now employing more than 1,400 people, Ryanair has racked up a string of industry awards and invested heavily in new fleet and routes.

Seven million passengers travelled with the airline last year and with internet bookings booming and Ryanair filling the vacuum left by cutbacks by major carriers, phenomenal growth seems assured into 2002 and beyond.