SWOT Analysis of Ryanair Holdings PLC Essay example -- business, case

This report is based on Ryanair Holdings PLC which was established in 1985. â€Å"Ryanair obtains permission from the regulatory authorities to challenge the British Airways and Aer Lingus' high fare duopoly on the Dublin-London route. Services are launched with two (46-seater) turbo prop BAE748 aircraft† (Ryanair, ND). Ryanair Holdings PLC is an Ireland based airline which is the largest low fare airline with 32 bases & over 800 low fare routes across 26 countries, connecting 146 destinations. Ryanair fleets are made up of 196 Boeing 737-800 crafts with a seating capacity of 189 seats. Its aims are to deliver a further 102 aircrafts over the next 3 years. Ryanair currently employs more than 6,000 people and expects to carry over 67 million passengers this year. This report is giving me the chance to highlight Ryanair’s strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats which they face now and in the near future. Introduction Strengths Ryanair is known as Europe’s first low-cost, no-frills airline company. This alone is one of the company’s strongest selling points. It carries around 34 million passengers a year across 107 locations round Europe, totalling some 266 routes. The company has a leading market share on most UK and Ireland routes and around 43 percent of all Dublin-London and 45 percent of all other Dublin passenger loads. The ‘no-frills’ strategy resulted in the increase of customers and expansion of their operations, wherein the staff increased from an initial 57 to an amazing 3,400 staff and almost 37 million passengers. Ryanair has a strong business strategy, which capitalizes on a number of key advantages: fare-conscious leisure and business travelers, sales of one-way seats based on changing demand, the use of ... ...le to compete with this. Substitute transportation such as cars and high speed trains are also a threat as customers are getting luxury treatment also at a lower price. Conclusion Ryanair has established leading position within the European low-cost airline business due to a effective business strategy and expansion plan. Nevertheless, its reliance on the UK and Irish market and lack of hedging pose considerable future risks. In order for Ryanair to survive in this current climate, they should increase prices to keep up with rising oil prices. Bibliography Ryanair (ND). ‘History of Ryanair’, Available at http://www.ryanair.com/en/about. Accessed 11 November 2009. Guardian(2009). ‘Lunatic bloggers can keep the blogosphere’. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/feb/25/ryanair-socialnetworking. Accessed 11 November 2009.