Ryanair informations and photos

Ryanair DAC is an Irish ultra low-cost carrier founded in 1984. It is headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Republic of Ireland and has its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted airports. It forms the largest part of the Ryanair Holdings family of airlines and has Ryanair UK, Buzz, Lauda, and Malta Air as sister airlines. In 2016, Ryanair was the largest European budget airline by scheduled passengers flown, and it carried more international passengers than any other airline.

Ryanair Group operates more than 400 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, with a single 737-700 used as a charter aircraft, as a backup, and for pilot training.[needs update] The airline has been characterized by its rapid expansion, a result of the deregulation of the aviation industry in Europe in 1997 and the success of its low-cost business model. Ryanair's route network serves 40 countries in Europe, North Africa (Morocco), and the Middle East (Israel, Jordan and Turkey).

The company has often been criticised for its poor working conditions, heavy use of extra charges, bad customer service, and tendency to intentionally generate controversy in order to gain free publicity.

Since its establishment in 1984, Ryanair has grown from a small airline, flying the short journey from Waterford to London Gatwick, into Europe's largest carrier. There have been over 19,000 people working for the company, most employed and contracted by agencies to fly on Ryanair aircraft.

The airline went public in 1997, and the money raised was used to expand the airline into a pan-European carrier. Revenues have risen from €231 million in 1998 to €1,843 million in 2003 and to €3,013 million in 2010. Similarly, net profits have increased from €48 million to €339 million over the same period.[better source needed]

Ryanair was founded in 1984 as "Danren Enterprises" by Christopher Ryan, Liam Lonergan (owner of Irish travel agent Club Travel), and Irish businessman Tony Ryan, founder of Guinness Peat Aviation. The airline was shortly renamed "Ryanair". It began operations in 1985 flying a 15-seat Embraer Bandeirante turboprop aircraft between Waterford and Gatwick Airport.

In 1986, the company added a second route–flying Dublin to Luton, thus directly competing with the Aer Lingus/British Airways duopoly for the first time. Under partial EEC deregulation, airlines could begin new international intra-EEC services, as long as one of the two governments gave approval (the so-called "double-disapproval" regime). The Irish government at the time refused its approval to protect Aer Lingus, but Britain—under Margaret Thatcher's deregulating Conservative government—approved the service. With two routes and two aircraft, the fledgling airline carried 82,000 passengers in one year.

In 1986, the directors of Ryanair took an 85% stake in London European Airways. From 1987, this provided a connection with the Luton Ryanair service onward to Amsterdam and Brussels. In 1988, London European operated as Ryanair Europe and later began to operate charter services. That same year, Michael O'Leary joined the company as chief financial officer. In 1989, a Short Sandringham was operated with Ryanair sponsorship titles but never flew revenue-generating services for the airline.

Due to decreasing profits, the company restructured in 1990, copying the low fares model of Southwest Airlines, after O'Leary visited the company.

In 1992, the European Union's deregulation of the air industry in Europe gave carriers from one EU country the right to operate scheduled services between other EU states and represented a major opportunity for Ryanair. After a successful flotation on the Dublin and the NASDAQ stock exchanges, the airline launched services to Stockholm, Sandefjord Airport, Torp (110 km south of Oslo), Beauvais–Tillé and Charleroi near Brussels. In 1998, flush with new capital, the airline placed a massive US$2 billion order for 45 new Boeing 737-800 series aircraft.

The airline launched its website in 2000, with online booking initially said to be a small and unimportant part of the software supporting the site. Increasingly the online booking contributed to the aim of cutting flight prices by selling directly to passengers and excluding the costs imposed by travel agents. Within a year, the website was handling three-quarters of all bookings.

Ryanair launched a new base of operation in Charleroi Airport in 2001. Later that year, the airline ordered 155 new 737-800 aircraft from Boeing at what was believed to be a substantial discount, to be delivered over eight years from 2002 to 2010. Approximately 100 of these aircraft had been delivered by the end of 2005, although there were slight delays in late 2005 caused by production disruptions arising from a Boeing machinists' strike.

In April 2003, Ryanair acquired its ailing competitor Buzz from KLM.

During 2004, Michael O'Leary warned of a "bloodbath" during the winter from which only two or three low-cost airlines would emerge, the expectation being that these would be Ryanair and EasyJet. A loss of €3.3 million in the second quarter of 2004 was the airline's first recorded loss for 15 years but the airline became profitable soon after. The enlargement of the European Union on 1 May 2004 opened the way to more new routes for Ryanair.

The rapid addition of new routes and new bases has enabled growth in passenger numbers and made Ryanair among the largest carriers on European routes. In August 2005, the airline claimed to have carried 20% more passengers within Europe than British Airways.

For the six months ending on 30 September 2006 passenger traffic grew by more than a fifth to 22.1 million passengers and revenues rose by a third to €1.256 billion.

On 13 February 2006, Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary as part of its Dispatches series, "Ryanair caught napping". The documentary criticised Ryanair's training policies, security procedures and aircraft hygiene, and highlighted poor staff morale. Ryanair denied the allegations and claimed that promotional materials, in particular a photograph of a stewardess sleeping, had been faked by Dispatches.

On 5 October 2006, Ryanair launched a €1.48 billion (£1 billion; $1.9 billion) bid to buy fellow Irish carrier Aer Lingus. On 2 October 2006, Aer Lingus rejected Ryanair's takeover bid, saying it was contradictory.

In August 2006, the company started charging passengers to check-in at the airport, therefore reversing its policy of paying for online check-in. It says that by cutting airport check-in, it reduces overhead costs.

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