STRUCTURE
Structure I
1 Introdution 1
2 Analysis 2
2.1 Ryanair’s business environment on the basis of pestel 2
2.2 The market attractiveness based on Porter’s Five-Forces-Model 3
2.3 Internal and External key success factors based on a SWOT-Analysis 4
2.4 Ryanair’s strategic planning based on McKinsey’s 9-field-matrix 5
3 Conclusion 7
4 Bibliography 8
1 INTRODUTION
Ryanair was founded in 1985 in Waterford/Ireland. In the beginning it operated one daily
flight from Waterford to London Gatwick. By challenging the high fares of the major
airlines in the UK, foremost British Airways and Aer Lingus, the company soon extended
their fleet and flight network. The low-cost approach that allowed Ryanair to set foot in the
airline business defined their business model for the following years. From 1985 to 1995
Ryanair increased the number of passengers per year from 5,000 to 2,260,000. But only in
1996 the company decided to not only serve the UK market, but also to offer a greater
variety of Europe-wide flights. In order to finance the necessary expenses, Ryanair went
public. This major step was successful and Ryanair constantly increased the number of
connections and passengers. Today, Ryanair is the 5th biggest airline in the world in terms
of scheduled passengers carried with a total of 76,422,000 passengers in 2011. (IATA,
2012)
The success of Ryanair has not gone unnoticed by the major European airlines.
International players such as Lufthansa are no more willing to leave the low-cost segment
to Ryanair and other competitors. At the same time the rapid growth of Ryanair has created
problems. The pricing pressure, the growing competition, the poor corporate image and the
complexity of the company, make Ryanair face problems that require an alignment of their
future strategy.
This paper aims to provide an analysis of the core business model of Ryanair in the
low-cost carrier service, describe its market environment, the key factors that define its
external success and internal strength. The collected information will then be interpreted
by using scoring methods and implemented in a McKinsey-9-field-matrix in order to
obtain strategic conclusions about new possible approaches.
2 ANALYSIS
I would like to begin with a short description of the external environment and internal
structures of Ryanair that set the framework for its success.
2.1 RYANAIR’S BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ON THE BASIS OF PESTEL
Firstly, air transportation in Europe used to be highly regulated. In the course of the
European unification, major national legal and barriers have disappeared. Jacques Barrot,
former European Commissioner for Transport even described the development of the last
