Airline Industry Information - Ryanair cuts ticket price after SAS cut on Oslo-London route

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2002 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

There is reportedly a price war on air tickets between Norway and London, UK.

After the Scandinavian airline SAS cut the ticket price on its Oslo to London route last week in competition with the Irish budget airline Ryanair, the Irish airline has reportedly cut the fare to NOK220 for a one-way ticket on its Torp airport to London-Stansted route. Ryanair has said that the aim is to sell 70% of the tickets at this price.

SAS cut its cheapest fare from NOK2,100 to NOK950 last week, according to Nettavisen, a Norwegian online newspaper.

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There has reportedly been considerable interest in the budget tickets - the SAS web site could not cope with the traffic when the cheaper tickets were released.

Enda O’Toole, the information director for Ryanair, has said that Ryanair intends to be cheaper than SAS and people will know that the airline maintains reasonable prices. O’Toole has also said that many of the large European airlines have been able to set the prices as they have wanted for several decades and Ryanair’s success shows that people do not want to put up with this anymore.

SAS has reportedly reacted to Ryanair’s comments but has said that it does not want to comment on the two airlines’ different business ideas. SAS also said that the recent price cut was not aimed solely at Ryanair and that the two airlines maintain widely different service concepts.

Ryanair on the other hand has been criticised for using London’s Stansted airport instead of Heathrow, Nettavisen reported. O’Toole does not understand this criticism, and claims that the airline would not want to fly to Heathrow even if it could do so for free - the airport is so strained that it would have meant a large increase in delays.

Ryanair has said that the airline sells an average of 80% of the seats on its Torp-Stansted route. SAS has declined to comment on the percentage of sold seats on single routes, but the average percentage on international routes is 60%, Nettavisen reported.

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