It is all change at Ryanair these days.
Assigned seats, handbags allowed on board, updated website… it is as if the low-cost airline is on a charm offensive.
Not necessarily, says chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs. He told JOE’s business podcast, The Capital B, that Ryanair have no interest in being loved. They are happy to be liked.
However, there is no denying the airline have become easier to like in recent times and, according to Jacobs, the company is going to endear itself even further to travellers very soon with an exciting new development.
Ryanair are great for scooting around Europe, but not further afield, so when you want to make a long-haul journey it will often require a couple of flights. In the past, booking connecting flights via the Ryanair website and circumnavigating the hassle of transferring your own baggage in transit was impossible.
But not for long.
“We have announced this morning that we are going to let you self-connect on the Ryanair website in a way that you can’t,” said Jacobs.
“If you want to go from Dublin to Palermo on our site or app today, you can’t do that, but what we are not going to allow you to do is connect at Rome Fuimicino. That will all be under one booking reference, you will be able to check your bags all the way through from Dublin to Palermo,” said Jacobs.
Listen to the interview from 2’50” or continue reading below.
But it will soon bet even better for air travellers, says Jacobs.
“We are going to do that first with Ryanair but also with other airlines. We are talking to Aer Lingus about doing it here in Dublin. If you look at Dublin, we connect 90 European destinations into Dublin. Aer Lingus have an outstanding – maybe Europe’s best – long-haul product into the United States because you can do pre-clearance of US immigration.
“We are going to allow you to come on to the Ryanair website, search from Rome to JFK, you would do Rome to Dublin with Ryanair and then the New York leg with Aer Lingus.”
Jacobs admits such cooperation between the two Irish airlines would have been unthinkable in the past but there is no doubt it is good news for customers.
“This is a massive change. If you go back through the history of Ryanair and Aer Lingus, to think that we would not be cooperating… At this stage it is a natural evolution that is probably better for them than it is for us because their future will be on having an outstanding long-haul product rather than short-haul in Europe.”
