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The rise of Ryanair

 The Irish Ryanair started operating with only 1 turboprop aircraft in the year 1985. The plane could only carry 15 people, but it was enough to make it profitable.

At first, the idea of its owners was to create a low fare airline by operating between less crowded airports that don't ask too much from the airlines. Normally and airport would charge every airline that operates through it, but Ryanair avoided the more crowded, major international airports and decided to fly between smaller airports.

Their first route was between Waterford (Ireland) and London's Gatwick airport. It went so well, that Ryanair purchased 2 more BA 768 turboprop aircraft to carry passengers and has extended its routes to 2. In 1986, the total number of passengers carried was of 82.000. An impressive number for a small airline. Despite the early success, the airline starts losing money due to bad cost management, they swap to a new management team and re-launch the company as a "low cost/no frills" airline.

In 1995, on the company's 10th birthday, they were already the largest passenger carrier on the Dublin-London route, becoming also the largest Irish airline to operate, having carried about 2,25 million passengers in 1995.

1997 was the year when Ryanair launched its services to Stockholm, Paris, Oslo and Brussels.

Of course, Ryanair made efforts to modernize their fleet, purchasing Boeing 737-800 aircraft to replace the 15-seater turboprops. In 1998, the company makes a 2 billion $ deal to purchase 45 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

The airline launches its online booking site, Ryanair.com in the year 2000. Quickly, more and more people rush to it to book tickets online, initially the site taking tens of thousands of bookings per week.

In 2001, already 75 % of the bookings were made online.

The year 2002 brings more profit & fame to Ryanair, which by now is one of Europe's largest low cost airlines, competing with the England-based easyJet. Ryanair decides o enlarge its fleet by further acquiring 150 Boeing 737-800, an immense number of aircraft, considering the fact that few airlines in Europe have more than 100 machines, and those that do, are considered to be large carriers.
2003 and 2004 bring more profit, more passengers & more routes to operate on for the airline.  

At this time, it's often debated which is Europe's leading airline: Ryanair or easyJet.

They're both successfully launched & evolved enterprises, extending more and more, carrying more and more people on the continent. easyJet has the slogan "Europe's leading low cost airline", while Ryanair has some like "70 % cheaper than easyJet"... The competition is getting tighter between the 2 large carriers and they're both leaving less space to the newly launched small regional low cost airlines. We'll see what the future will bring, but one thing is sure, the 2 companies will try to put their claws on the newly opened markets in Central Europe, because of the fact that the 10 new EU countries (who joined the EU in May the 1st 2004) contain some of the most profitable markets: the airports of Budapest and Warsaw are the region's most frequented ones, millions of passengers pass through them each year. Not o mention that these 2 cities are the largest & richest in the region, attracting millions off tourists each year...