Ryanair
low-cost airline of Ireland
Ryanair is an Irish ultra-low-cost airline headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. It is the largest airline in Europe by scheduled passengers carried, fleet size, and total flights. Globally, it is the largest airline by international passengers carried, the third-largest by market capitalisation behind Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, and the fifth-most profitable by net income. In 2025, the company sold 208 million airline tickets, averaging €70 in total revenue against €62 in costs per ticket sold. It is widely considered to be the cheapest airline operating in Europe.
The airline was founded in 1984 by Christopher Ryan and Tony Ryan, from whom it takes its name. Today, the parent company, Ryanair Holdings plc, operates airline subsidiaries Ryanair DACTooltip Designated activity company, Buzz, Malta Air, Lauda Europe, and Ryanair UK. Combined, the group manages a fleet of 651 aircraft and operates over 3,500 short-haul flights per day, serving approximately 230 airports in 36 countries. Its primary operational bases are at Dublin, London Stansted, and Milan Bergamo. To maintain low operating expenses, the company dynamically manages its network, frequently cutting routes or reducing capacity in response to increases in regional airport fees, taxes, or environmental levies.
Ryanair operates an ultra-low-cost, no frills business model, generating nearly one-third of its income from ancillary revenue by charging additional fees for seat selection, cabin and checked baggage, and airport check-in services.
The public source identifies “Ryanair” as low-cost airline of Ireland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ryanair, low-cost and airline.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q170614. VIAF identifies the subject as 147053319. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025 and 1984.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ryanair” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.