One of the most dominant airlines in low-cost air travel today with its unique and, often times daring, cost-cutting and marketing strategies is explored in Kevin Lu‘s blog post. Since I can be considered part of Ryanair’s target market, this particular blog posting caught my attention as an interested potential consumer of Ryanair services.

Ryanair has accomplished something very unique in that its point of difference is in fact its low-cost tickets and corresponding absolutely minimal air services. During lecture discussions on marketing strategies and stakeholder theory the importance of creating a strong and attractive business image and valuing all stakeholders within the business was emphasized.

However, Ryanair seems to have no problem portraying an image of cheap service and poor quality flight-experience as well as undervaluing the significance of healthy stakeholder relations. This is suggested in Kevin’s post as he mentions ethical implications of charging consumers for access to restrooms on board. Not only does this portray Ryanair in a light that may not be attractive to consumers but also suppose that Ryanair does not value their connection with consumers (against stakeholder theory).

What is even more astounding is that consumers targeted by Ryanair seem to be largely unmoved by the airline’s questionable ethical conduct or poor quality service, as ticket sales are still on the rise. For Ryanair marketing image and stakeholder theory may not be as important as long as the consumers’ pockets are not completely emptied by the end of the flight. One would be wrong to assume the ‘head honcho’ of low cost air-travel would lose market share as it continuously pushes the boundaries of ethical business conduct.

Sources:

Lu, Kevin. “How Cheap Is Too Cheap?” (2012): n. pag. Web. 6 Oct. 2012. https://blogs.ubc.ca/kevinlu/2012/09/13/how-cheap-is-too-cheap/.

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/investor/2012/q4_2012_doc.pdf