Ryanair is an Irish ultra-low-cost airline headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. It is the largest airline in Europe by scheduled passengers carried, fleet size, and total flights. Globally, it is the largest airline by international passengers carried, the third-largest by market capitalisation behind Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, and the fifth-most profitable by net income. In 2025, the company sold 208million airline tickets, averaging €70 in total revenue against €62 in costs per ticket sold. It is widely considered to be the cheapest airline operating in Europe.
The airline was founded in 1984 by Christopher Ryan and Tony Ryan, from whom it takes its name. Today, the parent company, Ryanair Holdings plc, operates airline subsidiaries Ryanair , Buzz, Malta Air, Lauda Europe, and Ryanair UK. Combined, the group manages a fleet of 651 aircraft and operates over 3,500 short-haul flights per day, serving approximately 230 airports in 36 countries. Its primary operational bases are at Dublin, London Stansted, and Milan Bergamo. To maintain low operating expenses, the company dynamically manages its network, frequently cutting routes or reducing capacity in response to increases in regional airport fees, taxes, or environmental levies.
Ryanair operates an ultra-low-cost, no frills business model, generating nearly one-third of its income from ancillary revenue by charging additional fees for seat selection, cabin and checked baggage, and airport check-in services. Ryanair is ranked 790th on the Forbes Global 2000 and 280th on the Fortune 500 Europe. Longtime CEO Michael O'Leary, who owns approximately 4% of the company, frequently deliberately stirs media controversy to generate free publicity for the brand. While the airline consistently scores poorly in customer satisfaction metrics, including annual surveys by Which?, the company routinely dismisses these results as statistically unrepresentative, pointing instead to its long-term growth in booking numbers.
History
1984–1989
The company was incorporated on 28 November 1984 as Danren Enterprises. It was founded by Christopher Ryan (1936–2007), Tony Ryan (1936–2007) (founder of Guinness Peat Aviation), his son Declan Ryan, and Liam Lonergan (owner of Irish travel agent Club Travel).
The airline was renamed Ryanair and launched its first flight on 8 July 1985, between Waterford and Gatwick Airport, with a 15-seat Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante turboprop aircraft. Cabin crew were required to be at most tall "in order to be able to operate in the tiny cabin of the aircraft". As of September 1985, Ryanair was operating 9 weekly flights on the route. In its first year, the airline carried 5,000 passengers.
The first chief executive was Eugene O'Neill (1956–2018), who had formerly worked as managing director of Tony Ryan's Sunday Tribune newspaper and as Ryan's personal assistant. O'Neill was talented at marketing but did not focus on costs, and the airline lost money in its early years. Ryan vetoed O'Neill's proposal to accuse Aer Lingus for breach of competition rules at the European Commission because at the time Aer Lingus was state-owned and Ryanair depended on the Irish government for its route licences. Ryan fired O'Neill in September 1987, who sued for wrongful dismissal.
Beginning in 1986, under partial European Economic Community (EEC) deregulation, airlines could begin new international intra-EEC services as long as one of the two governments approved. The Irish government at the time refused to allow Ryanair to add a route between Dublin and Luton to protect Aer Lingus, but Britain, under Margaret Thatcher's deregulating Conservative government, approved the service. The company was then able to add its second route, with two Hawker Siddeley HS 748s, directly competing with the Aer Lingus/British Airways duopoly for the first time. Ryanair's price of £99 return was half of that of the legacy carriers; Aer Lingus then cut its price to £95 return and Ryanair cut its price to £94.99 return. In their first year of operation, Ryanair's two routes had 82,000 passengers.
In 1986, Ryanair acquired an 85% stake in London European Airways (LEA) in a £630,000 rescue package. It was re-launched in April 1987 using a leased BAC One-Eleven. In May 1987, the service launched routes between Luton and Amsterdam and Brussels. In January 1988, it was rebranded as Ryanair Europe. LEA was dissolved in May 1991.
In 1987, the company lost £3million. That year, the company began wet leasing BAC One-Elevens from TAROM and increased its network to 15 scheduled routes.
In 1988, Michael O'Leary, formerly an accountant at KPMG who had handled tax preparation for Tony Ryan and his companies and a classmate of Declan Ryan, joined Ryanair first as a financial assistant to Tony Ryan and then as chief financial officer of the company. That year, the company began leasing ATR 42-300s from Guinness Peat Aviation and launched a business class service and frequent-flyer program; they were ended the following year.
In 1989, a Short Sandringham flying boat was painted with Ryanair livery as part of a proposed sponsorship deal with Foynes Flying Boat Museum but never flew revenue-generating services for the airline.
1990–2009 By 1990, the company had accumulated £20million in losses. That year, O'Leary was dispatched to Dallas to meet with Herb Kelleher, a co-founder of Southwest Airlines and an acquaintance of Tony Ryan. He came back with a plan to transform Ryanair to a low-cost carrier modelled after Southwest. O'Leary's strategy was to adopt a simple all Boeing 737 fleet, pursuing expansion over yield, create a culture of cost-cutting, and re-educate the customer to prefer lower prices to frills. Ryanair implemented a 30-minute turnaround goal to allow aircraft to make more flights per day. The company then restructured with an additional £20million investment by Tony Ryan. Also that year, the company moved its base at Luton Airport to London Stansted Airport. The company switched to a buy on board programme, the route network was reduced from 19 destinations to 6, and the cheapest ticket prices were reduced from £99 to £59 return. By the end of 1990, the airline was on pace for 745,000 passengers per year.
In 1991, due to a decline in demand during the Gulf War, the airline lowered fares and increased operations at London Stansted Airport, generating a total profit of £293,000 for the year. In 1992, the airline carried 945,000 passengers.
In January 1994, Ryanair took delivery of its first Boeing 737. That month, Michael O'Leary became the sixth chief executive officer of the company. At that time, Ryanair was owned by the three sons of Tony Ryan.
In 1995, Ryanair carried over 2million passengers.
Ryan clashed with O'Leary, with Ryan wanting the airline's public relations stunts to be less aggressive, and O'Leary suggesting that Ryan should leave the board.
Ryanair Holdings was established in 1996 as a holding company for Ryanair.
The EU Single Aviation Market established in 1992 as well as the airline deregulation in April 1997 and the removal of cabotage gave low-cost carriers, including Ryanair, the opportunity to expand.
The airline became a public company via an initial public offering in May 1997, raising funds on the Dublin and the NASDAQ stock exchanges to expand the company across Europe. All employees received free shares in the IPO; many pilots' shares were worth over £100,000 by 2000. In 1997, Ryanair carried 3.7million passengers.
In 1998, Ryanair launched services to Stockholm, Sandefjord Airport, Torp, Beauvais–Tillé, and Charleroi.
In May 1999, the Ryan family sold 10.5% of the company, reducing their stake to 17.1% and netting approximately £117million and Michael O'Leary sold 1.5% of the company, reducing his stake to 10.8% of the company and netting about £17million. In 1999, flush with new capital, Ryanair placed a US$2billion order for 45 new Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
By March 2000, Ryanair operated a total of 33 routes. The airline launched its website in 2000 built by a 17-year old entrepreneur for IR£20,000. Management thought that the online booking engine would only be a small part of its business. By the end of 2001, 75% of bookings were made online.
In December 2001, competing low-cost airline Go withdrew its service from Dublin due to competition from Ryanair.
In January 2002, the airline ordered 155 new Boeing 737-800 at what was believed to be a substantial discount due a decline in demand after the September 11 attacks, to be delivered over eight years from 2002 to 2010. Approximately 100 of these aircraft had been delivered by the end of 2005, despite production delays in late 2005 caused by a Boeing machinists' strike.
In June 2002, the High Court of Ireland in Dublin awarded Jane O'Keefe €67,500 damages and her costs after Ryanair reneged on a prize of free flights for life that she was awarded for being the airline's 1millionth passenger in 1998.
In 2002, Ryanair refused to provide wheelchairs for disabled passengers at London Stansted Airport, leading to lawsuits. The airline argued that this provision was the responsibility of the airport authority, stating that wheelchairs were provided by 80 of the 84 Ryanair destination airports. A court ruling in 2004 judged that the responsibility should be shared by the airline and the airport owners; Ryanair responded by adding a surcharge of £0.50 to all its flight prices.
In April 2003, Ryanair acquired its ailing competitor Buzz from KLM for approximately €20million. It was shut down in October 2004.
In June 2003, spats between O'Leary and the founding Ryan family led to the resignation of Declan Ryan, who had been on the board of directors of the company since 1985. The Ryan family sold additional shares in the company, reducing their stake to 55million shares. Tony Ryan offered to resign, but he remained on the board until his death in 2007.
In August 2003, MyTravelLite started to compete with Ryanair on Birmingham to Dublin route. Ryanair set up competing flights on some of MyTravelLite's routes until it withdrew from the market.
A loss of €3.3million in the second quarter of 2004 was the airline's first recorded loss for 15 years but the airline soon became profitable again. The enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 allowed for more new routes for Ryanair. In September 2004, EasyJet announced routes to Ireland for the first time, beginning with the Cork to London Gatwick route. In 2006, EasyJet withdrew its Gatwick-Cork, Gatwick-Shannon, Gatwick-Knock and Luton-Shannon routes due to competition from Ryanair.
In 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. In May 2006, the company was criticised by The Guardian for its £3.15 "aviation insurance levy" added to the cost of all tickets; the publication noted that most of this was profit to the airline.
An early day motion in the British Parliament put forward in July 2006 criticised Ryanair for its complex, predominantly online-only complaints process; it was signed by 57 members but tabled on 24 July 2006.
In October 2006, Ryanair launched a €1.48billion bid to buy Aer Lingus; Ryanair already owned 19% of Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus immediately rejected Ryanair's takeover bid, saying it undervalued the airline. In October 2006, DFDS Seaways ended its Newcastle–Gothenburg ferry service, the only dedicated passenger ferry service between Sweden and the United Kingdom, citing competition from low-cost air services, especially Ryanair.