Ryanair Brand | Travel and Leisure

Ryanair
Sky's the limit
July 21, 2003

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Southwest Airlines must be extremely flattered. The American budget airline has been emulated not only at home but also in Europe with EasyJet and Ryanair. The latter, founded in 1985 in Ireland, has increased its annual traffic from about 700,000 to over 15 million passengers, in the past ten years. It is now a ticketless airline with all sales conducted over the Internet.

A visit to Ryanair.com reveals a design that means business. A large banner offering £25 for all return fares within the UK occupied a large section of the front page (this figure changes frequently but it’s always absurdly low). The site is offered in 11 languages, and similar offers are displayed in all the different languages: Reims-London from 15 euros, on the French site; Maastricht-London from 20 euros, on the Dutch one.

Those examples reveal Ryanair's strategy; the airline largely bypasses the main hubs to fly from point to point at a low cost. As a result, the website's front page comprises a list of midsize European towns, from Pisa to La Rochelle to Glasgow, besides the major capitals traditionally well covered by airlines. Every city name is a hyperlink that leads the visitor to booking information.

As often seen in such portals, the left side is occupied by a navigation menu -- dhtml rolling text in this case -- which offers no less than about 20 options. It is somewhat messy, but by and large, everyone should find what they are looking for in such a laundry list.

That said, the Booking button is banished to the very top right corner of the screen, which makes it easy to miss (in spite of its annoying blinking feature). Third-party click-through buttons, to rent a car or book a hotel room, occupy the right-hand column and bring additional revenue to the shrewd Irish air carrier.

*Due to the constantly changing environment of websites, some reviews may no longer reflect the current website for this brand.


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