McGuinness says that Ryanair decided to open the Zagreb base two months earlier than originally planned due to many reservations and requests from Zagreb and the high demand for flights to Zagreb, reports Index.hr.
At the Ryanair Zagreb base, which opens at the end of July, the airline will have one aircraft by the end of August, and plans to introduce another in September, says McGuinness.
He also reveals that following the demand; the airline is considering the possibility of introducing a third aircraft during the winter if reservations show good results because it plans flights to Zagreb all year round and already has 14 destinations planned from Zagreb from November this year. By the summer of 2022, there are plans for about 30.
“I will not give you information on reservations by individual routes, but I will repeat what I emphasized at the press conference at the end of March when we announced our arrival: Zagreb has been underrepresented for years. For example, Zagreb and Dublin are cities of similar size. Still, before the arrival of Ryanair, Zagreb had flights to 38 destinations, and Dublin to about 200, and Zagreb is much more beautiful and interesting than Dublin,” McGuinness said about the state of reservations and sales of flights to Zagreb.
He says that he is surprised by the bookings from Zagreb. However, expectations this year are still conditioned by the pandemic and travel restrictions. There is a lot of competition for flights to sunny destinations such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Croatia.
He adds that Ryanair will not operate traffic to Zagreb only with “Zagreb” planes because it has 450 planes and can fly to Zagreb from the other 80 bases throughout Europe.
When asked how long they intend to have a base in Zagreb, he answered that they see great potential in Zagreb and that it will dedicate itself to its own and the growth of Zagreb Airport.
“We will follow developments and decide on routes, where costs are one of the main points in our decisions. We are the company with the lowest low-cost price in Europe, and we are so precisely because of our primary cost orientation. We work with partners on efficient operation, and it is the costs that determine our future decisions,” says McGuinness.
As previously announced, they will need about 60 workers at the Ryanair Zagreb base. McGuinness explains that each aircraft needs about 30 people to service it, from pilots and cabin crew to engineers and support.
When asked if they will look for these employees on the local market or bring them from other countries, he said that they already have many pilots and cabin crew from Croatia and a lot of people who would like to live in Croatia because of the climate.
“We work in about 40 countries at 230 airports and have workers of various nationalities. For example, members of about 30 nationalities work in our base in Dublin. In Zagreb and Zadar, where we will also have a base this summer, people from Zagreb and Zadar, but also from other countries that want to live and work in Croatia,” says McGuinness.
Apart from employing themselves, he points out that we should not forget the indirect jobs that their flights bring to a destination, i.e., the benefits that taxi services, buses, catering, hotels, and others have from passengers.
The situation is similar with Zadar, where they will have two planes at the base during the summer season this year, for which, as in Zagreb, they are investing 200 million euros.
Asked how he would invest given the losses he, like many other companies, has in the pandemic, McGuinness said it should be “put in context.”
“In the past two months, Ryanair has opened ten new bases in Paris, Venice, the Greek islands, Denmark, Riga in Latvia, and Stockholm’s Arland. You know we are the strongest company in Europe, and we don’t get help from the state and funds, as is the case with other companies, including Croatian Airlines. We do not receive such assistance, and we have the strongest balance sheet in Europe, and we have merged the strongest airlines. We are the only European company that has achieved growth in air traffic over several years. We see that, for example, Croatia Airlines has postponed the purchase of new aircraft, while Ryanair has confirmed orders for 210 new Boeing 200 aircraft, which are the strongest in that class,” McGuinness says.
Regarding the purchase of new aircraft, he says he will take them over in the next four years, increasing the fleet to more than 600 aircraft, which they plan to carry about 200 million passengers a year.
To achieve this and overcome pandemic and other challenges, he is currently working with partners across Europe to find opportunities for recovery, which he considers very important.
“We are doing this in Croatia, where we have been flying since 2006, which means that this year we have our 15th anniversary, during which we transported about five million passengers to and from Croatia, which we are very pleased with. We also know how important tourism is to the Croatian economy and that it makes up about 20 percent of the national GDP. In cooperation with the airports in Zagreb and Zadar and others, we also bring investments. We consider this to be the right way in which we can help recover traffic at this time,” says Ryanair’s commercial director.
Apart from Zadar and Zagreb, this summer, they will also fly to Pula, i.e., they will have 58 routes to Croatia, of which 33 are new.
There are a couple of routes to Dubrovnik and Split, but as the fees at the airports in those cities are too high for them, he says that they are talking to partners about further conditions and that it is unlikely that an agreement will be reached.
When asked if they are satisfied with the agreement reached with Zagreb Airport, he said only that “agreements can always be better,” that they are committed to Zagreb, but also that their focus is always on price.
“Ryanair is quite an opportunistic company, and there are a lot of places we don’t fly to, and people ask why. According to our conditions, we have many places where we could place our capacities and where there is a market gap for us, and one of them was Zagreb. I am happy that we have reached an agreement and that we will fly to Zagreb and set up our base there earlier than planned,” McGuinness says.
In the region closer to Croatia, they introduce innovations this year, such as two flights to Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They also operate in Banja Luka and Podgorica in Montenegro and Nis in Serbia.
They are satisfied with the business in the Balkans and hope that they will continue to grow there as well, while they have the largest base closer to Croatia, and otherwise the largest, in Italy with 70 aircraft.
They also operate in Hungary, Greece, Israel, and Cyprus.
On the company’s business as a low-cost carrier, McGuinness says only one model is suitable for airlines and good business, and that is low cost.
“I repeat that we are the strongest airline in Europe and that we do not receive state aid for our investments, including the purchase of new aircraft, which we consider extremely important in a situation where companies across Europe have received around 30 billion euros in aid since the pandemic. It is illegal. and we really appeal and challenge because this situation can destroy the market, which is bad for consumers, and it can destroy competition. We will continue to fight for consumers across Europe and ‘challenge’ all these illegal actions in the courts across Europe,” comments McGuinness.
Despite everything, and unlike many companies that have received grants, their prices remain extremely low throughout Europe.
When asked about the owners of Ryanair, he states that the public companies are listed on the London, Dublin, and New York Stock Exchanges, which have many shareholders around the world, mostly large institutional funds, institutions, and others.
He says that flights and trips on their planes during the pandemic are safe in every sense, including health, because safety is their priority.
“Aircraft are disinfected every 24 hours, everyone who has to be around and in the aircraft pays attention to health safety measures following international rules, and the air quality in the aircraft is like in the operating room. Therefore, all available seats can be booked in on the plane, and passengers and staff must wear masks,” McGuinness emphasizes.
He also considers EU Covid passports to be a good idea, which will make travel easier for people from this summer, and Ryanair has already made its so-called covid-wallet or passport, in which all the necessary information can be entered via the application and the website about testing, proof of vaccination and the like.
Asked to comment on Croatia Airlines’ complaints, McGuinness said it was inappropriate to complain at all, as they had “received millions of euros,” in his opinion, of illegal state aid.
“The fact is that Croatia Airlines has not achieved growth and profit in the past four years. Ryanair will bring 14 new routes to Zagreb this year, and Croatia Airlines has brought three in the past four years. We think Croatia Airlines must do its homework again and new calculations,” comments McGuinness.
When asked if Croatia Airlines is their competition in Croatia and how they generally deal with competitors, he reiterated that they operate in 40 countries, concluding that they always consider competition good for consumers, airports, and Ryanair, as well as for Croatia, Zagreb, its airport and the people of Zagreb.
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