Ryanair has a long history of being on the front page of the news with some kind of hysterical statement or action, usually from its eccentric CEO Michael O’Leary. He has been known to be arrogant, eccentric, and outspoken. The main question is whether this is actually good for business or not.

The saying goes “Any publicity is good publicity”, and Ryanair and Michael O’Leary are true followers of this mentality. Brand Awareness for Ryanair is extremely high especially for the price sensitive consumer who can travel for as low as 14.5 Euros. When people choose to fly Ryanair, they know that they will get the ultimate no-frills service and will be forced to pay for any extra services, which include printing your boarding passes at the airport, having bags with you, credit card purchases, etc. This is especially efficient during times like this when there are still the lingering effects of the economic recession.

Michael O’Leary uses the newspapers to obtain free advertising for Ryanair with his outrageous comments. He has been seen at news conferences saying that his new business class will offer FREE BLOWJOBS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfIY24BErBE) and that the airline will begin charging money for people to use the bathrooms (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1263905/Ryanair-toilet-charges-phased-in.html). The newspapers and media outlets eat this up and he is constantly on the front page of the newspaper or Internet, thus receiving free advertising from these media outlets. I believe that because Ryanair’s competitive advantage over other airlines is its cheap fares, this free advertising is good for business. The people that want to fly Ryanair are people with a transactional orientation towards the company and only want to pay the lowest fare possible.

This marketing strategy has not pleased everyone as many people have boycotted the airline and thus do not feel that the abrasive marketing strategy is worth the money saved when they fly the airline.

At the end of the day though, this strategy must be working as Ryanair saw a 4% increase in passengers flown. They are Europe’s largest low-cost airline with around 80 million passengers flown annually (2012). The second largest low-cost airline, EasyJet, flew around 60 million passengers (2012). So this strategy may not work for everyone, but it is working really well for Ryanair and there market.