EasyJet, Europe’s #2 budget airline in passenger volume seems ready to mount another challenge to #1 Ryanair on Ryanair’s home turf, Dublin Airport.
EasyJet has now secured 88 take-off and landing slots for next winter at Dublin, an airport it has never flown from, although over the years it has based operations at other Irish airports, Shannon, Knock and Cork. Those operations, the most recent in 2004, only lasted months in the face of aggressive fare-cutting by Ryanair. Other budget airlines have had similar experience.
Ryanair, which is Europe’s largest airline by passenger count, carries about three times as many passengers as EasyJet, and is nearly double the size of the entire Lufthansa Group. It similarly dwarfs the next three on the list. Ryanair recently again denied speculation it is interested in trans-Atlantic routes, saying it prefers to stick to a market it knows well.
