Several years ago, low-cost carrier Ryanair was a single Irish airline operating flights across
Europe with its primary bases located in Dublin and at London Stansted. However, a lot has changed
in the years since. An impressive five airlines now fall under the Ryanair Group umbrella, ranging
from Polish carrier Buzz with its intriguing livery, to Malta-registered Lauda with some
Airbus A320 family aircraft. Indeed, the airline group now has 500 aircraft with many more brand
new 737 MAX jets on the way. Here's the story of how one huge airline became five large airlines.
Excluding the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Ryanair carries more international passengers than
any other airline. In 2019 the airline carried 149 million passengers on its 2,500+ daily flights
across 40 countries. While every Ryanair group flight operates under a Ryanair flight number, the
Irish budget carrier is increasingly diversifying its operations across its group airlines.
These days the Ryanair Group is made up of five smaller airlines. Confusingly,
the leading airline in the group is called Ryanair and is the original airline that
existed before being split into subsidiaries. In November 2018, Ryanair was joined by Ryanair
Sun. This was a Polish airline designed to cut operating costs. The name didn’t remain for long,
however, and has since been rebranded as Buzz to differentiate it from the leading airline brand.
In March 2019, an additional subsidiary was formed. As an Irish airline, Ryanair is also
an EU airline. The airline's largest base has historically been at London Stansted Airport.
Anticipating possible issues post-Brexit, the airline sought to launch a UK subsidiary called
Ryanair UK. It’s not just Ryanair that has this type of split. Indeed, we also have
Wizz Air and Wizz Air UK among others, as well as UK-based easyJet and its European counterparts,
easyJet Europe and easyJet Switzerland. Going back to Ryanair UK however,
December 2018 saw a Boeing 737-800 registered on the UK registry as the subsidiary’s first
aircraft. The aircraft, registered G-RUKA, would eventually joined by 7 more 737-800s.
August 2019 saw the creation of the airline's largest subsidiary to date. Known as Malta Air,
the airline has bases across Europe and has slowly taken market share from Ryanair.
The final airline was acquired by Ryanair rather than created by the Irish carrier.
Meanwhile, Austria’s Laudamotion began operating Ryanair flights in late 2019
and is the reason Boeing 737-dominant Ryanair has a handful of Airbus narrowbodies in its fleet.
This is something we’ll explain more in-depth later in the video.
Excluding the impact of the pandemic, the addition of the new subsidiaries
had naturally meant that the number of flights being operated by Ryanair began
to fall. However, the airline was operating more flights year on year at the same time.
Before the subsidiaries really got a chance to establish themselves,
the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With roughly a full year of uninterrupted recovery, the breakdown
between the subsidiaries has become more steady. The market share of Buzz and Malta Air began to
grow steadily. There was a brief exception during the height of the first wave of COVID-19 in
Europe when all of the airline's few flights were operated by the main Ryanair airline.
The graph here shows the proportion of total flights being operated by the three biggest
subsidiaries is now reasonably constant. Based on scheduled flights from July 2021 to June 2022,
each of the Ryanair big three has the following share of flights.
Ryanair, which includes Ryanair UK, accounts for 55.6% of scheduled flights.
Malta Air accounts for 33.4% of flights,
And Buzz has 11% of flights within our selected date range.
In April 2021, Malta Air actually operated more flights than Ryanair, at 3,906 to 3,480.
A result of varying travel restrictions, this dominance was short-lived. According
to Cirium's data from March 2022, Ryanair operated 37,094 flights,
Malta Air operated 22,284, while Buzz operated just 7,616​​​​.
Now, let's take a deeper look at the airline's different subsidiaries in order of launch,
starting with Ryanair Sun, the first to begin operating flights.
Ryanair Sun initially began operating charter flights in April 2018.
In mid-to-late 2018, Ryanair announced that it would be closing its Polish bases
and transferring operations to Ryanair Sun. In March 2019, Ryanair revealed that Ryanair
Sun was getting a rebrand and ditching the primary brand name. The airline today
operates as the bee-themed airline Buzz. While all the Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft still wear the
old Ryanair livery, the new Boeing 737 MAX jets have the bright-yellow Buzz livery complete with
bee cartoons on the winglets. Ryanair purchased the Buzz brand in 2003 for around €20 million.
According to data from ch-aviation.com, the airline today has a 58 strong fleet of 46
Boeing 737-800 aircraft, accompanied by 12 Boeing 737 MAX 200s. With the Boeing 737 MAX
aircraft delivery, the fleet's average age has dropped from 4.3 years to 3 years since July 2021.
The airline has bases in Slovakia, Hungary,
Poland, Czechia, and Austria, while it’s primary base is Warsaw's Modlin Airport.
Next up is Ryanair UK. With the uncertainty of Brexit weighing on Ryanair's mind,
the airline decided to establish a presence in the UK just in case it was necessary to continue
operations once the big day came. The airline group founded this particular subsidiary in 2017,
with the airline's first aircraft, G-RUKA, joining the UK aircraft register on December 20th, 2018.
While just two Boeing 737-800s were registered with the airline in July 2021,
this has since grown to eight planes registered RUKA through RUKH.
These jets are from the Boeing 737-800 family with no MAXs yet bound for the UK subsidiary.
Moving on, Malta Air was founded in 2019 through an agreement between the Maltese
government and Ryanair. Initially, ten aircraft were to join the Malta Air fleet, based out of
Malta's Luqa International Airport. The airline has grown significantly in the two years since.
At the time of making this video, the airline has 144 Boeing 737-800 aircraft,
with its first Boeing 737 MAX 200 arriving in June 2021.
The airline's fleet has an average age of 3.2 years and a total capacity of
27,408 passengers. The airline has bases in Italy, Germany, France, and Malta.
However, it recently closed its base at Frankfurt Airport in a dispute over handling fees.
Lauda Europe, founded as Laudamotion, commenced flights in March 2018 when
Ryanair revealed it would acquire 24.9% of the airline before later growing it to 75%.
The investment marked a departure from Ryanair's typical model,
as it meant the airline would have some Airbus A320 family aircraft under its care.
An airline originally founded by the late racecar driver and entreprenuer Niki Lauda,
Laudamotion was fully acquired by the Ryanair Group by January 2019. In July 2020, Ryanair
had setup a Malta-based airline with its own aircraft operators certificate named Lauda Europe.
By October of that year, Laudamotion ceased operations, and its fleet of Airbus A320s
formed the Malta-based Lauda Europe fleet. The airline has a total of 29 A320-200
aircraft, with an average age of 15.1 years and a seat capacity of 5,220.
Lauda Europe shares its main base with Malta Air. The original Ryanair still operates most of the
group’s aircraft, accounting for over 50% of the fleet with over 260 jets.
This includes 25 Boeing 737 MAX jets as well as a single Boeing 737-700- which,
in case you didn’t know, is Ryanair’s special VIP and corporate charter aircraft available for hire.
One interesting aspect of the Ryanair Group and its airlines
is the liveries that aircraft currently wear- or have been wearing.
Indeed, the majority of its subsidiaries' fleets also contain aircraft in the Ryanair colors.
While there’s no reason for Ryanair UK to have its own distinct livery,
you might at least expect Buzz jets to be repainted.
However, aircraft aren't being repainted because Ryanair has deemed this an unnecessary expense-
costing money that Ryanair doesn't want to waste. While there might be some confusion
at the airport, passengers overall are likely to be indifferent to the livery of their aircraft.
It’s a different story for new deliveries of 737 MAX jets, however.
Brand new aircraft coming from Boeing will need to be painted anyway.
Thus when it comes to cost, it makes little difference which livery they end up with.
Speaking of new aircraft, data from ch-aviation notes that Ryanair has roughly 150 more Boeing
737 MAX aircraft yet to be delivered- at least at the time of this video’s production.
These brand new aircraft will be the special MAX 8-200 variant. While this type has the
same dimensions as a standard MAX 8, an extra set of emergency exit doors have been added to
allow for a denser seat configuration. As it stands, these aircraft cram 197 seats
into the all-economy class cabin, with each non-reclining seat having a pitch of 28 inches.
So, as you can see from the Ryanair Group’s massive expansion over the past few years,
its low-cost operating model has been a huge success across the continent- so much so that
the group’s leadership have sought opportunities to grow and expand in other parts of Europe.
While competition is fierce with fellow operators easyJet and Wizz Air, Ryanair Group
and its subsidiaries seem to be in the lead with a collective fleet of 500 aircraft and counting…
How many of Ryanair's subsidiaries have you flown
on? Share your experiences with us by leaving a comment below!