Ryanair aiming for at least 50 percent growth in east, central Europe Ryanair in Dublin.
Ryanair expects passenger numbers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to surge by at least 50% over the next decade, the airline's manager for the region, said, as it looks to dominate in a less developed market also targeted by Wizz Air.
Europe's biggest low-cost carrier has ordered as many as 300 jets as it looks to take advantage of the rebound in air traffic following the COVID-19 pandemic and the company expects demand for new routes in eastern Europe.
We want to focus very much on this region, Mr. Wojcik-Golebiowska, the CEE and Baltics country manager for Ryanair, told Reuters. We see that this is going to be a significant part of our upcoming expansion. It's pretty hard at this moment to say about the exact numbers, but we hope that the whole region is going to grow at least by 50%, she said.
While Poland has been one of Ryanair's key markets, Wojcik-Golebiowska said the company was now redoubling its focus on other countries in the region.
We see that central and eastern Europe was a little left behind in the past few years, he said. So we want to catch up in this region to catch it up with our most developed markets like Spain, Italy or Poland, she said.
Wizz Air will be the main competitor of Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air, providing similar cheap fares, as well as connections to the Middle East.
When asked how the Irish carrier would plan to compete, Wojcik-Golebiowska said it would use our best fares, with our best punctuality, and also with making sure that we do not have delays and cancellations.
We plan to do it with delivering more routes and better fares and more travelling options for our passengers, she said.
Airlines in Europe have reported robust summer bookings despite high inflation and an uncertain economic outlook, and Wojcik-Golebiowska said Ryanair was confident it would avoid the strikes that contributed to travel disruption in 2022.
Currently we do not expect to have any disputes with labour unions and our current employees, she said.