In Ryanair's early years, they were perceived by the public as heroes for making air travel cheap and for fighting government authorities. Ryanair started with a great image where it was loved by the public, which almost drove it to bankruptcy. Its first regular service began in 1986 from Dublin to London and it seemed too good to be true. It had very low fares with no restrictions and also provided full meals and drinks during the flight. The airline wanted to create good brand loyalty, passengers would see the same employee check in to the flight and then follow them onto the plane. This has helped create strong brand loyalty among customers and the company. This caused the company to lose $2 million in the first two years. An investment of $20 million subsequently had to be made to keep the airline alive. Things changed quickly for Ryanair when Michael O'Leary became Chief Financial Officer. It began by copying the strategy of the best low-cost airlines of the time, Southwest Airlines. Ryanair quickly eliminated unnecessary extra features and created a very low spending strategy. This caused him to lose loyal customers but increased profits. In 2013 YouGov surveyed Ryanair with a negative rating of 35% making it the least liked airline in the UK. No doubt all investors were unhappy with this decision until the end of the year, when Ryanair announced that it had made $4.8 billion in revenue, making it the most profitable airline in the world. To date, Ryanair is the largest European airline and the fifth largest in the world. This was something that baffled everyone in the marketing industry. So how did a company become so successful with such a poor image? The answer is a value proposition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The value proposition is understanding what a customer is willing to buy. Nowadays passengers know for sure that Ryanair does not provide excellent service but offers a very cheap fare. From time to time Michael O'Leary had also made comments about the famous 'toilet tax' whereby he would start charging passengers £1 to use the toilet and had also said that if a passenger is willing to pay £5 for the toilet, he will have him carry them himself and wipe his bottom. This gave Ryanair a lot of free publicity, good or not, but people started to become familiar with the brand and values. Airlines started giving customers more reasons to fly with them because they knew that no one wanted to travel with them because of their poor service but because of their cheap prices. One of Ryanair's senior executives said: “Fly with us and then use the money you save to check into a luxury hotel. You will stay on our plane for 1 hour. You can stay in the hotel for an entire weekend. It changed the customer's way of seeing things. According to Ryanair's 2019 annual report, the average fare is just €37. Which is cheaper than traveling by train for 2 hours within European countries. No doubt they had more than 80 million travelers every year. Most people were actually happy to pay a low price and travel without additional services to save that money and spend it elsewhere. The value proposition is not so much when customers are on the plane but when they arrive at their destination. The last time anyone used this approach in the airline industry was Freddie Laker in 1977, when he founded the Skytrain. You could.
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