This summer, a collaboration between budget airlines Ryanair and Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS) on long-haul routes can become a reality, according to Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary.
The CEO attended a press conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday where he was originally to talk about that the company is considering creating a Danish airbase.
Irish Ryanair has several more short-haul routes in Europe than Norwegian, and believes Norwegian may serve to cooperate with Ryanair to fly passengers to the cities where NAS have long-haul routes to the United States from.
It’s not because we want more traffic on our short routes. The reason why we want to help them, that we would like to see their long-haul success, says the Ryanair boss.
– Because if they succeed, the more expensive companies come to stand weaker, and it may eventually be good for us. But otherwise, there are no benefits for Ryanair with such cooperation, continues O’Leary.
He hopes a partnership is in place this summer, but says that companies must first solve the problem of getting the two airlines’ technical systems to communicate.
O’Leary stressed, however, that the two companies will continue to compete, and that there is no talk of a Star Alliance-like low cooperation.
CEO of Norwegian Bjorn Kjos said in January that the two companies work to put in place a “deal that was good for both parties” with Ryanair, which by the NTB was informed could involve anything from joint booking, transfer of passengers and common baggage handling.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
