Wednesday 1 July 2015

RYANAIR 

Ryanair has been a boon for Danish air travellers. My wife tells me that when she was young, in the days when SAS and British Airways had a cosy duopoly, it was cheaper to fly from Copenhagen to New York and then to London, than to fly direct. The first time I flew here, for Christmas 1986, it cost me £450 in a little propeller-driven plane from Southend to Billund. Nowadays I can fly with Ryanair from Billund to Stansted in a jet for under Dkr.450, a tenth of the price in nominal terms and less than that in real terms.

Billund is a Ryanair base, and the airline has done well there. However, the airport there is in the middle of nowhere, and Ryanair has always viewed it as a first step on the way to Copenhagen, which is bigger, very efficient and the hub for the rest of Scandinavia. In March this year they started using Copenhagen as a base, with flights to London Luton, Warsaw and Milan, and I have used it a couple of times (both Luton and Stansted are awful, but Copenhagen has the advantage of a train service, so you don't have to pay for a week's car parking). However, that development was challenged in court by the Danish trade unions, who were appalled by Ryanair's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement with any of them, which they said was illegal.

Today Denmark's labour court agreed. Since this is their standard policy around Europe, that decision is a big blow for Ryanair. Their immediate response was to dismantle Copenhagen as a base, while continuing to service it from abroad (in other words, planes will not overnight and start from Copenhagen, but overnight and start from Luton, Warsaw and Milan). This is quite possible, though undoubtedly second best in terms of attracting business travellers.

It is also a big blow for Danish consumers, who like the company's cheap prices, even if they don't particularly like its business practices.

Is it also a big blow for Danish trade unions, given that those permanent base jobs will now disappear? Slave labour, the unions reply, and so not ones that we want. A principled stand, but not one in Denmark's long-term interest, in my view. If Copenhagen won't be a Ryanair base, then Warsaw will. Not all competition comes from China.

Walter Blotscher

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