Following Noel Josephides’ comments (Travel Weekly October 11) I would like to make the following points.
Last year Ryanair made an after-tax profit of £45m. In the same period Go managed to lose £21m on a total turnover of £31m. People should be in no doubt as to which of the low-fare airlines is financially secure, and which will be the next for financialreconstruction. BritishAirwayscan put as much money as it likes into Go, but it will never be a low-fareairline, or a profitableoperation. For Go to be truly profitable, it has to cannibalise its parent, and BA will simply lose even more money.
Go is not Ryanair’scompetition. We have opened 18 routes in the past three years from London Stansted. In all cases we have takentraffic and market share fromBA, and in all cases we are profitable. Over the same period BA has managed to lurch from record annualprofits of £800m to (latest analysts forecast) a loss this year.
A disciplined, wellorganised, profitable,low-fares airline will not justcompete – but beat – the major airlines in a fares war.
We will continue tocompete directly with British Airways and the loss-making Go, or should that be gone?
Tim Jeans
Director of sales and marketing
Ryanair