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01st Feb 2017

Ryanair may start offering customers free flights abroad

It might not be for a while, but "it's the objective".

Paul Moore

We’re on board.

In an interview with the German business newspaper Handelsblatt, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary revealed that he thinks free airline tickets could be a viable business model.

According to O’Leary, any offset in revenue would be cushioned by consumers spending more money on luxuries, like in-flight snacks and Wi-Fi.

If this means that we get free plane tickets on the condition that we go hungry while being unable to surf the web, so be it. We would be absolutely delighted.

 

Photo: Adrian Pingstone

 

“One day I want to have all the air fares on Ryanair being free,” Mr O’Leary told the newspaper. “Ancillary revenues already make up 30 per cent of our revenues. We might never get there, but at least it’s the objective”, he said.

O’Leary also had some strong opinions about Theresa May, Brexit Donald Trump.

Regarding the British Prime Minister and her handling of Brexit, he said: “Britain wants to be a global trading nation with free trade? So why don’t you have free trade with the biggest trading bloc of the world, Europe? It’s mad.”

O’Leary also stated that he no longer has plans to open a transatlantic route and that President Trump’s recent policies are doomed to fail. “Isolationism has never yet succeeded anywhere in the world,” he said. “If it did, North Korea would be the world’s greatest economy.”

Topics:

Ryanair,Travel