Ryanair Opportunities
What are the three major opportunities for Ryanair that follow from the competitive context the firm is operating in ?
Low-cost business welfare
Business growth
Low-cost market growth seems ineluctable: the trend is definitively positive.
In 2004, INSEAD reports the analyst to forecast a market growth between 18 and 25% annually.
The actual Ryanair performance figures, retrieved from the its web site, show a real correlation with this analysis : Year | Passengers | Growth | % | Load Factor | 2003 | 23132936 | | | 81 | 2004 | 27593923 | 4460987 | 19,28 | 84 | 2005 | 34768813 | 7174890 | 26,00 | 83 | 2006 | 42509112 | 7740299 | 22,26 | 82 | 2007 | 50931723 | 8422611 | 19,81 | 82 | 2008 | 58565663 | 7633940 | 14,99 | 81 | 2009 | 66503999 | 7938336 | 13,55 | 82 |

This business growth is partly the result of the size increase of the first niche market (maturity ?), as the young people, firstly targeted 10 years ago, are now older and still ready for this type of service. They discovered the low-cost offer and continue to use it nowadays. The low-cost model is now fully part of the common experience of air travellers.
Even for the 2008-2009 period where a worldwide air transport market contraction occurred, Ryanair gained a 13,5% growth (IANA and AEA reported a loss of 5,2 % of the European revenue passenger figure).
This growth is the base of Ryanair leadership positioning, as it may preserve the lack of high pressure on its model of operation effectiveness and provides a peaceful context for experimenting the creation or the addition of new type of services.
Less competitors
In 2005, the Reims Management School document reported the rivalry competition as being high, as the number of low-cost companies turned from 38 in 2003 to 65 in 2004.
After 2006, this pressure decreased: numerous low-cost companies go finally to bankruptcy (especially between 2004 and 2006 : cf :