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 Travel & Outdoors | February 2006 
Founder to Launch Budget Mexican Airline
 Wire services
Ryanair Holdings Plc founder Tony Ryan plans to set up a low-cost airline in Mexico, Latin America´s second largest civil aviation market, together with a local company.
Ryan will make the investment through his family´s investment firm, Irelandia Investments Ltd, said Francisco del Cueto, who is organizing a press conference Feb. 27 in Mexico City for Ryan to present the project. Inversionistas en Autotransportes Mexicanos SA, a Mexican bus company, is Ryan´s local partner, according to a statement today from Del Cueto´s company, Del Cueto & Asociados.
Ryan joins Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Emilio Azcárraga in seeking to profit from a market that may double to 40 million passengers in as few as three years, according to the Mexican government. Slim and Azcárraga are backing a budget airline set to begin flying March 1. Two other startup carriers, Interjet and Avolar, started operations last year.
"The potential is Mexico is huge," said Damian Fraser, head of Latin America equity research at UBS AG. "There´s a lot of people here paying US$40, US$50 for a bus ticket which is roughly what profitable low-cost airlines charge for a plane ticket in many parts of the world."
Ryan and his family set up Ryanair in 1985, 10 years after he co-founded the aircraft leasing firm GPA Group Plc. The carrier made its first profit in 1991, swinging from a loss of 20 million Irish punts (US$30.2 million) the previous year after the introduction of low-cost fares helped turn the business around.
Today, the Dublin-based company is Europe´s biggest low-cost airline and expects to carry 35 million passengers this fiscal year. The Ryan family has an estimated wealth of 1.02 billion euros, according to the Dublin-based Sunday Independent newspaper.
Tony Ryan and his sons Declan, Cathal and Shane own about 7 percent of Ryanair. |
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