Advertisement

Lufthansa can't cut it, says Ryanair boss

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Lufthansa can't cut it, says Ryanair boss
Photo: DPA

Michael O'Leary, CEO of Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, hopes to quintuple his market share in Germany at the expense of the national airline Lufthansa.

Advertisement

“We currently have a market share of around four percent in Germany, in the next three to four years we'll be working towards an increase to 15 to 20 percent”, O'Leary told financial newspaper Handelsblatt.

A share that large of the German market would put Ryanair well behind Lufthansa and its own low-cost subsidiary Germanwings, but would see it overtake rival Air Berlin.

O'Leary added that he isn't worried about Lufthansa's move into his no-frills territory.

“Some engineers and doctors get together in Frankfurt and decide around a green table that they'll found a low-cost airline. That's just not enough”.

He claimed that Germanwings and the newly-founded Eurowings shared similar high-cost structures with their parent company, despite Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr's promise that Eurowings would offer 40 percent cheaper prices.

O'Leary also promised that Ryanair would be serving larger airports closer to Germany's biggest cities in future.

“We're currently in talks with eight German airports, four or five of them are large airports, which aren't currently in our network”, he said, adding that he hoped to attract more business travellers with the new routes.

SEE ALSO: 7 hour flight become 40 hours of hell

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also