Case study methodology and applications

Ryanair is one of the initial European airlines that promoted the low fares system. The company has developed into one of Europe's largest low fares carriers. The number of customers per year has more than significantly increased, as it follows: in 1985-5,000 passengers; 1986-52,000; 1990-745, 000; 1995-2,260,000; 2000-7,002,000; 2006-30,346,000 (Ryanair, 2007). However, as any airlines company, Ryanair has had its ups and downs. The company's SWOT analysis is presented bellow. Basically, the company's strong points refer to a strong position on the market, high recognition level, high appreciation from customers, quality of service, and vary low ticket fares. The company's weaknesses are mainly connected to employee productivity. However, the company has a series of opportunities and threats that must be taken into consideration, which will be discussed bellow.

Ryanair's success is based on a series of strengths. The company is very well positioned on the market, as an uncontestable leader, it has high recognition in customers' minds. Ryanair is customers' favorite airline company, as 90.2% of passengers choose Ryanair, which is followed by Easyjet, Air France, Alitalia, Iberia, and British Airways with 73.8%. As one can observe, Ryanair has evolved a great deal, exceeding companies like British Airways.

Another one of Ryanair's strengths is related to the quality of service. The company offers meals, amenities, and other services comparable to those offered by Aer Lingus and British Airways. In correlation to this fact, another strong point comes into attention: Ryanair's employees' quality. The company's employees focus on delivering high level services to passengers.

Ryanair's ticket fare accounts for another strong point that the company has taken advantage of. The ticket fare is

98 at Ryanair, while in case of other companies fares range between

189-199. Ryanair's price strategy is very clever, as the company's prices are low enough to be appealing to customers, but are not low enough to cause the company any serious financial damage in the medium term or long-term. This price strategy seems sustainable for at least a medium period of time. The company can afford this reduced ticket fare due to its continuously increasing number of customers.

However, there are a series of weaknesses that must be taken into consideration. Employee productivity is one of them. U.S. carriers and European carriers of similar size have similar numbers of employees per company. But for European carriers the number of employees per aircraft is double than that in case of U.S. carriers. This means that U.S. employees are able to handle a double number of passengers, therefore having double productivity.