Ah, right. Ryanair, the Early Years. Thought it might have been something like that. Thanks. Grant SYD QF ----- Original Message ----- From: Alireza Alivandivafa <DEmocrat2n@xxxxxxx> Date: Thursday, December 11, 2003 9:14 am Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Singapore Airlines to Create Low-Cost Carrier Next Y... > In a message dated 12/10/2003 1:48:18 PM Pacific Standard Time, > gjmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: > > << Ryanair bankrupt???? Since when??? I thought they were very > profitable.Or is this some other incarnation of Ryanair that I'm > not aware of? >> > > Ryanair was founded in 1986 flying an EMB-110 Banderantie from > Waterford (or > something of the sort) in Ireland to London. They then expanded using > aircraft from all places, something like 8 planes of 5 types. > That included planes > like ATRs and One-Elevens. They were losing money hand over fist, > even though > they had already taken a big chunk of DUB-LON traffic. A group of new > management (including O'leary) toured WN here in the US to learn > how to become a low > fare carrier (and obviously decided that free soda was too much of > a luxury). > Anyway, they got rid of all turboprops and stuck with only the One- > Elevens.They then started buying 732s, and eventually the first > 738 order (about 45 > planes, not the massive order from January of last year). During > this time they > phased out the One-Elevens and started doing the ass kicking that > goes on > today. >