Summary

• Ryanair Group now consists of five airlines with diverse operations and over 500 aircraft.
• Malta Air, Buzz, Ryanair UK, and Lauda Europe are part of the rapidly growing airline group.
• The group operates over 100,000 flights a month, with Ryanair still leading in operations.

About six years ago, Ryanair began as a single Irish airline with scheduled operations across Europe. Today, the Ryanair Group comprises five airlines, including Malta Air, Buzz, Lauda Europe, and Ryanair UK. With nearly 20,000 employees, the group achieved a revenue of nearly €11 billion in 2023. We explore how one of the largest low-cost carriers grew into five uniquely positioned airlines.

Last year, Ryanair was ranked Europe’s largest airline and one of the world’s largest airlines. In December 2023, it was also recognized as the world's most valuable airline and largest airline outside the US. The airline carried nearly 182 million passengers daily across Europe and beyond. The airline group serves more than 200 destinations worldwide and has over 500 aircraft. While every Ryanair group flight operates under a Ryanair flight number, the Irish LCC is increasingly diversifying its operations across its group airlines.

Five group airlines

The Ryanair Group is made up of five component airlines. Somewhat confusingly, the leading airline in the group is also called Ryanair and is the original airline that existed before being split into subsidiaries. This split started in November 2018. Ryanair was joined by ‘Ryanair Sun’. This was a Polish airline designed to cut operating costs. It has since been rebranded as Buzz and sports a yellow/grey bee livery on some aircraft.

The second subsidiary was formed in March 2019. Ryanair is an Irish airline and a European Union airline. However, the airline's largest base has historically been London Stansted Airport in the United Kingdom. Anticipating possible issues post-Brexit, the airline sought to launch a UK subsidiary called Ryanair UK. In December 2018, a Boeing 737-800 was registered on the UK registry as G-RUKA.

August 2019 saw the creation of the airline's largest subsidiary to date. Known as Malta Air, the airline has bases across Europe and has slowly taken market share from the main Ryanair brand. The final airline was bought by Ryanair rather than created as an offshoot of the low-cost carrier. Laudamotion began operating Ryanair flights in late 2019, according to schedule data from aviation data experts Cirium. It was acquired with Airbus A320s in its fleet, which remains to this day.

What does the data show?

The addition of the new subsidiaries naturally meant that the number of flights operated by the core Ryanair airline began to fall. However, combined, the airline operates more flights yearly as the Ryanair Group grows to new heights. Malta Air and Buzz have slowly grown their proportion of operations across the Ryanair Group network.

July 2023 was the first month the Ryanair Group operated more than 100,000 flights (Spoiler: it is set to beat this record again in August). In total, 100,844 flights were scheduled across the group in June (Ryanair’s official data shows it operated 101,272 flights).

Ryanair Sun Buzz

Now we’ll look at the airline's different subsidiaries in order of launch. This means we are starting with Ryanair Sun, the first to begin operating flights. The airline initially began operating charter flights in April 2018. In mid-to-late 2018, Ryanair announced that it would be closing its Polish bases and transferring operations in the country completely to Ryanair Sun.

In March 2019, Ryanair revealed that Ryanair Sun was getting a rebrand to distinguish itself from the main Ryanair brand further. The airline now operates as Buzz. While all the Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft still wear the old Ryanair livery, some of the group’s Boeing 737 MAX 8 200 aircraft have the Buzz livery, complete with bee cartoons on the winglets. Ryanair purchased the Buzz brand in 2003 for around €20 million.

According to data from Planespotters.net, the airline today has a 73-strong fleet with 59 Boeing 737-800 aircraft and 13 Boeing 737 MAX 8 200s. Interestingly, the Ryanair Group’s only Boeing 737-700 (formerly registered EI-SEV) was transferred to Buzz in April and is now registered as SP-RUM.

The Boeing 737-700 is 25.3 years old, which means that despite the arrival of new MAX aircraft, the fleet's average age has risen from 3 years in March 2022 to 8.2 years. The airline has bases in Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Czechia, Latvia, Bulgaria and Austria. Its primary base is Warsaw's Modlin Airport.

Ryanair UK

With the uncertainty of Brexit weighing on Ryanair's mind, the airline decided to establish a presence in the UK just in case it was necessary to continue operations once the big day came. The airline group founded Ryanair UK in 2017, with the airline's first aircraft, G-RUKA, joining the UK aircraft register on December 20th, 2018.

While just two Boeing 737-800s were registered with the airline in July 2021, this has grown to 15 planes registered as G-RUKA through G-RUKO. These jets are all from the Boeing 737-800 family with no MAXs yet bound for the UK subsidiary. While London Stansted is Ryanair UK's primary base, it also operates out of Manchester (MAN) and Edinburgh (EDI).

Malta Air

Malta Air was founded in 2019 through an agreement between the Maltese government and Ryanair. Initially, ten aircraft were to join the Malta Air fleet, based out of Malta's Luqa International Airport (MLA). The airline has flourished in the two years since. Today, it has 131 Boeing 737-800 aircraft and 43 Boeing 737 MAXs, for a total of 174 planes.

The airline's fleet has an average age of 6.9 years. The airline has bases across Europe, including five in Germany, where it is arguing against rising airport fees.

Lauda Europe

Lauda Europe, founded as Laudamotion, commenced flights in March 2018 when Ryanair revealed it would acquire 24.9% of the airline before growing it to 75% later. The investment departed from Ryanair's typical model, as it meant the airline would have some Airbus A320 family aircraft under its care.

In January 2019, Simple Flying reported that Ryanair had taken over 100% of the airline. There had been plans to add bases. However, the pandemic got in the way. According to data from ch-aviation.com, the Lauda that Ryanair had purchased was replaced with Lauda Europe, founded in 2020. The airline has 27 A320-200 aircraft, with an average age of 16.9 years. Lauda Europe is also based in Malta from a business perspective, but its aircraft are based at London Stansted Airpot (STN), Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Vienna (VIE), Zadar (ZAD), and Zagreb (ZAG).

How does the fleet break down?

Ryanair still operates most of the group’s fleet, accounting for nearly 53% of the total fleet with 298 aircraft. Of course, most of its subsidiaries' fleets also contain aircraft in the Ryanair colors. This gradually changes as individual liveries finally reach the new Boeing 737 MAX-delivered aircraft. Aircraft aren't being repainted because this costs money that Ryanair doesn't want to waste. Meanwhile, new aircraft need to be painted anyway, so it makes no difference which livery they end up with.

How many of Ryanair's subsidiaries have you flown on? Let us know what you think and why in the comments below!