Elena Cabrera is country manager for Ryanair in Spain and Portugal. In an interview with Ekonomus, the Tenerife native explains that, with a growth of 16% in routes this winter, Lanzarote is the Canary Island where its business volume is increasing the most. Ryanair has added a new plane to its base in Lanzarote for this winter and is expanding its staff to 120 workers.
Cabrera also analyzes the impact that the inclusion of the Canary Islands in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will have from January 1.
- Ryanair's connectivity to Lanzarote has grown by 16% this winter, is this the largest growth in the Canary Islands?
Yes, because we have added a plane for this winter, so now we have three in total with the two we put in summer when we reopened the Lanzarote base. With this we have increased the staff on the island to 120 workers.
- In total, Ryanair has 20 more flights in Lanzarote than last winter, what are the new routes?
We have 40 routes in total, 6 of them are new and connect the island with Belfast, Bremen, Milan, Knock (Ireland), Nuremberg and Zagreb.
- In addition to new routes, it has also reinforced some frequencies, with which cities?
We have increased frequencies on 9 routes. Among them Dublin, Berlin, Edinburgh, Madrid and Vienna.
- Why are there always certain markets that continue to grow, such as Ireland or the United Kingdom, and others, such as the Nordic countries, that do not?
We have a commercial team that is dedicated exclusively to seeing which are the best flows, where it is working best and where they need to be increased. In Ireland and the United Kingdom it is increasing a lot, I think because of the bad weather that has been there throughout the last part of the summer. That has encouraged them to come much more to the islands.
"If they force you to carry a larger suitcase, there will be people who don't need it and will have to pay for it"
We have some flights to the Nordic countries but not from Lanzarote. Travelers from the Nordic countries who go to Lanzarote usually do so through tour operators who have their own planes.
- One of the most novel routes is the direct flight to Zagreb. What has Ryanair based on to open this route, what expectations does it have?
We have seen flows that can be very interesting. The Balkans is a region that is starting to rise and in which we want to focus in the coming seasons.
- Do public administrations ever ask you to open a specific route?
We meet, we have conversations. Public administrations manage good information, we also do. For example, the Canary Islands has created a fund to share the risk of opening new routes to boost the connectivity of La Palma with 18 European destinations.
Airlines are going to see if there is any route that may be of interest to us in the plan. In this case, the institutions have done their own analysis and have seen the potential of these flows.
- Have you reached an agreement with any of the two companies that won the Aena handling tender at the Lanzarote airport?
We have our own service, it's called Azul handling.
- The European Parliament has spoken on the issue of hand luggage, it wants more clarity and uniformity in dimensions. If this translates into legislation, Ryanair will have to adapt...
We believe that the measurements of the bag that we include without surcharge are sufficient to carry the essentials. We give the consumer space to contract the additional services they want.
"The countries of central Europe have pushed for the outermost regions to no longer be excluded from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme"
If they force you to carry a larger suitcase, we find three things. One, there will be people who do not want to carry a larger suitcase, because they do not need it, and they will have to pay for it. Two, for security reasons, not all cabin trolleys fit on top of the plane, between 90 and 100 fit. Third, it is a matter of weight, the more luggage we carry, the more fuel has to be consumed and the more it pollutes.
- Recently there was controversy in the United Kingdom because Ryanair charged an elderly couple 110 pounds for taking out their boarding passes at the airport. Does Ryanair have any service to assist elderly people who have not been able to assume all the advances of digitization?
At Ryanair and in all companies in general, the evolution is towards digital and I think that helps us all. In the time of covid, for example, there was a great explosion in the use of our application. This is a measure to make it easier for everyone to pass through the airport and to get directly to the boarding gate.
We still have information points at airports where you can resolve all the doubts you have regarding your ticket or how it works.
- As of January 1, the outermost regions are no longer excluded from the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. What has happened so that the exclusion cannot be maintained? How much will it affect the price of Ryanair flights?
It came as a bit of a surprise, in the last vote that took place within the European Union, suddenly, they were included to start in 2024.
The countries of central Europe that have a great environmental sensitivity and have more possibilities to move by train have pushed in that direction and Spain has not managed to maintain the exclusion of the Canary Islands.
This is going to have an impact on the prices of all airlines because we are faced with the situation that it is going to be cheaper to fly from Dublin to Morocco than to Lanzarote because for flights outside the EU you do not have to pay those fees. We have not studied it yet, but we have had access to a study that speaks of at least 10 euros more per trip.