Ryanair and easyJet go to war over Ireland

EUROPE's two premier budget airlines went to war today as easyJet launched its first services to Ryanair's backyard.

The easyJet services from Gatwick to Shannon and Knock are also the only routes in Europe on which the two compete directly.

With Ryanair opening on Gatwick-Shannon in the spring, the first head-to-head battle between them will be to Knock in the west of Ireland, a seemingly inauspicious route but one likely to offer a window to a future in which the airlines will take on each other more aggressively.

'If you ask me why they have picked a fight over Knock of all places, the answer is God only knows,' said one aviation analyst, pointing to the fact that, between them, the two operate more than 400 routes.

'What I do know is that we are likely to get more of the same.'

EasyJet said in the autumn it was flying to the Republic just days after Ryanair announced it would start flying from Britain to provincial Spain, previously seen as the preserve of easyJet.

Weeks later, Stansted-based Ryanair said it would launch on the same Irish routes out of Gatwick.

Ray Webster, chief executive of easyJet, denied his move was titfortat and has attempted to remain diplomatic in explaining his act of aggression.

'Fares to the Republic of Ireland in many cases have remained stubbornly high and have generatedconsistently strong yearroundreturns for the incumbent airline [Ryanair],' he said.

An easyJet spokesman added: 'We are not going to enter into a war of words but, wherever we see price-gouging by an incumbent airline, we'll look at adding capacity. Ryanair's profit margins on these routes are twice what they are anywhere else.'

Ryanair co-deputy chief executive Howard Millar hit back.

'They are free to fly where they want to and if they want competition they can have competition,' he said.

'We will be happy to take the game to them. They seem to think there is a pot of gold buried somewhere in the west of Ireland. What we don't understand is that they have always said they fly to big secondary airports around Europe. So why are they flying to a small village on top of a hill on top of a bog?'

Knock's fame, such as it is, comes from the Catholic shrine which has attracted millions of pilgrims. A hundred years after 15 locals witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and Saint John, Knock got the papal seal of approval in 1979 with a visit from the newly-installed Pope John Paul.