ieExplains: What Ryanair's new subscriber model is all about
Ryanair has become the first carrier to launch a subscriber service in the Irish market. File picture: Denis Minihane
On Monday, Ryanair – ordinarily better known for its ‘more bang for your buck’ service and marketing and media strategies - officially launched a subscriber service, the rather familiar-sounding Ryanair Prime, becoming the first carrier to do so in the Irish market.
Ryanair has dubbed the new service a ‘subscriber discount’ scheme, priced at €79 for a yearly subscription. The actual discounts don’t appear to relate to the cost of flights themselves, but rather the optional ancillary add-ons that most fliers will be familiar with from booking travel online.
Those add-ons include free reserved seats (Ryanair normally automatically allocates a seat unless an extra charge is paid), free travel insurance, and access to 12 monthly members-only seat sales each year.
Ryanair has added to the air of exclusivity surrounding the new scheme by capping the number of people who can apply at 250,000. Signing up for the offer is done via Ryanair’s site. As at the time of publication, that limit did not appear to have been reached.
This really depends on how often you fly. Ryanair claims that the €79 subscription fee would generate savings of up to five times that figure (€395) per year if they fly 12 times in a year, though it further states that even customers who only travel three times in a year stand to save €105.
The higher saving obviously is dependent upon a frequent traveller making use of all the add-ons for each flight. But if you’re someone who both flies Ryanair all the time and who likes to be able to pick your own seat and bask in the comfort of being fully insured, there are certainly savings to be had.
Not especially. Quite a few American airlines have had a crack at the subscription model. One ultra low-cost carrier, Frontier Airlines, runs an ‘all-you-can-fly' pass – known as ‘Go Wild!’ – promising unlimited flights for $599 (€555) per year. There are limitations to that particular deal though – no baggage is included for example, and flights can only be booked 10 days in advance.
Closer to home, taxi app FreeNow has been offering a subscription model – known as FreeNow Plus – for frequent travellers since February. For a fee of €6.99 per month discounts of up to 10%, or €10 on each trip, are applied. For someone who takes a lot of taxis, the savings could certainly add up. Again, the target market is frequent users of the service.
Jackie Sheehan, sales director with travel management company Frosch Ireland, believes so, and thinks Ryanair wouldn’t be making such a move unless it “had its research done”.
“It’s a good strategic move, going back to what we all want to do – enhance customer loyalty and generate ancillary revenue. It’s good value, and is probably designed to keep people on Ryanair’s website rather than on a third-party platform,” she says.
“It’s just good marketing and basic sales rolled into one. They’ve looked at their customers who are flying between eight and 12 times a year and see that repeat business is valuable. It’s basic sales - ‘sell more to your existing client – but just being done at scale.”
