Decree against expensive flights, Ryanair's revenge is triggered: where the low-cost airline will cut flights
Ryanair, the number one airline in Italy, where it carries about 40% of passengers, has announced that it will cut with [...]
Ryanair
Ryanair, the number one airline in Italy, where it carries about 40% of passengers, announced that it will cut operations from the Sardinian airports of Cagliari and Alghero with its winter schedule as a result of "the introduction of a decree setting an illegal limit on prices issued by the Italian government," explained the Irish low-cost company's CEO, Eddie Wilson.
The numbers of the cut
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In terms of places offered, the cut will be 8% regionally compared to winter 2022, with Alghero (-16%) and thus northern Sardinia much more penalized than Cagliari (-6%). In detail, three domestic routes will be cancelled: the Cagliari-Trieste, Alghero-Bari, and Alghero-Treviso. And weekly frequencies will be reduced on seven other routes, including six domestic (Rome, Milan Malpensa, Bergamo, Venice, Naples and Catania) and one international (Brussels Charleroi).
Last July, after convening the companies concerned, faced with price increases in Italy on domestic and European flights of 40-45%, the government had intervened with a Decree law against 'expensive flights', capping fares to and from islands (Sicily and Sardinia) and under which tickets to those destinations cannot cost more than 200 percent of the average fare on that route. A move that has been sharply criticized by carriers, who see it as detrimental to the principle of free competition.
Low-cost carriers, and Ryanair in particular, are very 'strong' on the airports of the two Italian islands, where they hold very important market shares (and seats offered for sale). At Cagliari, specifically, 53.3% of the available seats are on board Ryanair aircraft, while at Alghero is 53.4%. But when considering the high load factors the company records at the two airports (up to 95-96% in the summer season), the 'weight' of Europe's largest low-cost in Cagliari and Alghero exceeds 60% of the two airports' traffic In terms of passengers embarked and disembarked.
