Ryanair aims to build up customer base

“Leeds Bradford Airport has tremendous potential,” Mr O’Brien told the Yorkshire Post. “Leeds and Bradford combined have a very significant population base, bigger than Manchester in terms of city populations. The statistics show that Leeds has great potential.

“To a very great degree in Leeds, the routes are for leisure, taking people into foreign hubs. The absence of business style routes is something that, over time, could be added. We are looking at that as our on-board product evolves to attract more business people. We already have quite a lot of business travellers but in an informal way.

“There are a lot of small and medium-sized business travellers but there are business travellers who don’t pay for their own tickets. That’s a market left untouched for the moment but is one that we will be reaching out to.”

Prior to taking on his new role, Mr O’Brien was head of flight and ground operations at Ryanair. The departure of Ryanair number two Michael Cawley (who will join the main Ryanair board as a non-executive director) to fast-growing energy company group PrepayPower prompted a reshuffle at the top of the airline, with Mr Cawley’s position being split in two.

Mr O’Brien has assumed Mr Cawley’s job of negotiating with airports across Europe. His remit includes handling route development, traffic management and other activities.

The second appointment was announced last month. Kenny Jacobs, formerly chief marketing officer at comparison site Moneysupermarket, takes the same position at Ryanair.

However, with the exception of Mr Jacobs, this shift in Ryanair’s marketing strategy and change in its management team has involved the moving about of existing and often long-term staff. In Mr O’Brien’s case, he has been with the airline since 1992.

So, to what does he attribute Ryanair’s longevity (the Irish-owned carrier says a record 5m passengers boarded its planes in December taking 2013 numbers to 81m, 2 per cent up on 2012)?

“Over the past 20 to 30 years, our success has been based on lower fares, being on time, not losing bags and not cancelling flights. But we are evolving. We will add another 30m passengers over the next few years. When I started we had nine aircraft, they were inauspicious beginnings. Now we have 300 planes and will have another 175 in the next few years.”

However, adding to its number of planes is not the only change on Ryanair’s agenda. Ryanair has long been renowned for poor customer service. Last year, the consumer magazine Which? voted the firm the worst for customer service of Britain’s 100 biggest brands. Shareholders have complained that the airline’s ‘macho’ image has harmed its business while Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s colourful boss, has courted controversy by hosting press conferences in bed with models.

Perhaps one of the most damaging pieces of publicity came last September when news reports told of a surgeon who had been charged £160 for an early flight home after hearing that his whole family had perished in a house fire.

Then, at the company’s AGM last autumn, Mr O’Leary said that the no-frills airline would try not to “unnecessarily upset people”. If the rise in customer numbers is anything to go by, this commitment is yielding results.

Over the past couple of months, Ryanair has halved its excess baggage fee, implemented a 24-hour grace period for minor booking errors and cut back on airport bag fees.

Last week, it introduced allocated seating. It has also announced a deal with Google to make its flight information available on the search engine’s Flight Search tool.

Most recently, Ryanair has launched a new service from Leeds Bradford to Girona Barcelona.

“The last time we introduced allocated seating it was 1991 and it was unhelpful,” said Mr O’Brien. “Now 80 per cent of people travel without bags. We are famous for our clear baggage policies. Heretofore we have allowed one take-on bag, now we allow a second small bag...

“People fall foul of our policies very rarely.

“Our customers have adapted and understand a reasonable amount of baggage. But it’s no longer a requirement for us to be so rigorous in that…It is no longer necessary.”

He added: “[As for the Which? survey] our own surveys get completely different results. You can’t grow to be the largest airline in Europe if [the Which? results] are true.”