Ryanair will not be replicating Wizz Air’s offer of a €500 season ticket, according to CEO Michael O’Leary in an interview with Eoghan Corry of Travel Extra
“When we looked at it initially, we thought, geez, they’re short of cash, they’re trying to generate cash. But when you look at it, they say they’re limited to 10,000 people. Now, maybe they will, maybe they won’t, therefore it only raises €5m.
I don’t think it works out great for passengers. You pay upfront 500 quid, you can have unlimited travel, but you pay €9 every time you make a booking. And then, you can only book within three days of departure. So, a lot of the Wizz flights will have sold out three days prior to departure. So, in a lot of cases, you won’t be able to get flight availability.
Now, during the winter, I suspect you will, but we think it’s subject to abuse in certain markets.
We looked at it and asked is there anything in this for us? No, frankly. In the winter, we’ll be selling a lot of €14.99 without any kind of promotion, which is what this is. And it takes a lot of administering, with 10,000 people calling up and saying, “Oh, this is my, you know, I’m entitled to this, here’s my membership number, here’s my this, that, and the other.”
So, we don’t see it as an option. But, you know, it looks like a bit of a stunt, we’ll watch and see what happens. But I don’t think there’s much in it, and it could become a Hoover kind of stunt. But, you know, given that it’s subject to availability, they could always just shut down availability if it went completely.”
