Ryanair, founded in 1985, is an
Irish airline known as the “low cost” airline. The company currently has a
fleet size of 298 Boeing 737-800’s. With all these aircrafts, the company
employs 8,500 individuals as pilots, flight attendants, and counter workers. In
2004, Google named Ryanair as the most popular airline. As the company grew,
people started to select this airline over many others. The current owner of
Ryanair is Michael O’Leary, who has been at the helm of the company since 1994.
Throughout Mr. O’Leary’s tenure as CEO, he has constantly been criticized by
the public for having such an abrasive management style. This company started
in 1985, with a staff of 25 people. Then, a year later in 1986, the company
serviced two turbo prop BAE748 aircrafts, flying roughly 82,000 passengers.
Then, after much success in the first four years, in 1990 the company lost $20
million dollars. Fast forward to 2011, and the company had 75.8 million
passengers board their planes over the course of the year and revenue of $4.2
billion. After the company growing exponentially, they have decided to make
extremely cheap airfare rates, but the controversy started when they started
charging passengers for reasons they should not have.
Ryanair has
created many charges that have caused controversy. This company has a revenue
of $503 million. Inside that number, over 20% of their revenue has come from
sources outside of airline tickets. The reason this company is bringing in more
than 20% of their revenue is due to many different rates. Ryanair currently
charges $208 for a name change on your boarding pass, a boarding pass fee of
$40, excessive luggage fee of $28 per kilo, credit card use fee of 2% of the
total amount, a reserved seat fee of $13, a checked musical instrument fee of
$83, and if you want a bottle of water on this airlines aircraft that will cost
you $3.50.
This
company charges many different fees and they are currently causing controversy
with customers due to what is going on inside the cabin of the plane. On a
Ryanair aircraft they have non-reclining seats, no seat back pockets, their
flotation devices are in the overhead compartment, they have “standing room
only” flights, and passengers must load their own bags onto the plane. Other
ways this company is bringing in such a large profit is due to removing two
toilets to get one extra seat on their planes; therefore they only have 1
bathroom on board. To use this bathroom, it will cost you $1.
Michael
Friedman describes Individualism as a company maximizing their total profits.
In this case, Ryanair is using Individualism because they are worrying about
anything except for profit. Due to Ryanair trying to maximize profits, the
company is acting ethically upon this theory. Ryanair is charging customers
absurd charges, such as charges to use the bathroom and for being overweight,
and is getting away with this. Rather than focusing on customer satisfaction,
this company is only worried about one thing; profit. This company does not
worry about all of the bad publicity that they receive from certain websites or
from media, they just want to maximize their profit and want to make the most
money possible. This company has seen their fair shares of negative feedback
but this has yet to affect their profits over the past five years. Therefore,
they are only focusing on themselves, rather than their customers. This company
has seen an increase in revenue and profit after charging their customers for
these charges.
The Utilitarianism theory states
that a company should maximize happiness in yourself and others. Happiness or
pleasure is the only things of intrinsic value. The reason behind this is that
happiness is valuable; there is no difference morally speaking between ones
happiness. In this controversy, Utilitarianism is not used. Happiness is a
common theme in this theory, but for Ryanair, the happiness level for their
customers is very low, due to all of the charges they are inflicted upon. Happiness
is something that should go both ways, giving it and receiving it. For Ryanair,
they are currently receiving happiness, due to receiving such large profits
from these fees that they are inflicting upon the customers. As far as giving
happiness, this company is doing nothing to create their customers to be happy,
besides one area. This area is low airfare for all of the customers that fly
through Ryanair. The customers are not happy with the fees they are paying and
this can be seen in customer reviews of this company, and a website such as http://www.ihateryanair.org/. These
customer complaints show that they are not happy Ryanair and therefore this
company is not compelling with Utilitarianism.
The basic
principles of Kantianism consist of four ideas. The first basic principle is to
act rationally. This means that one should not act inconsistently in their own
actions or consider themselves exempt from rules. The second principle is that
one should allow and help people to make rational decisions. The third basic
principle is to respect people, their autonomy, and individual needs and
differences. The last basic principle of the four is that one should be
motivated by good will, and seeks to do what is right because it is right.
For
Ryanair, they are simply going against the four basic principles of Kantianism.
This company is not acting rationally, because the company, they themselves,
feel that what they are doing is correct, but ethically, what they are doing is
extremely bad. The second basic principle is also not being used in this
company. Ryanair is not allowing their flight attendants and pilots to do what
is right, instead they are having them charge customers to use the bathroom and
pay for water. The next principle that this company is not practicing is
respecting people. This company is demoralizing individuals due to charging
them for being overweight and having “standing room only” flights. This company
is also not following the fourth basic principle, which is to be motivated by
good will and seeking to do what is right. This company is simply only about
their revenue and not worrying about what they need to do right.
The last theory that will be covered
is the virtue theory. This theory consists of four major characteristics that
are covered; courage, honesty, temperance and self-control, and justice and
fairness. Ryanair currently does not cooperate with these characteristics due
to the items that this company makes their customers pay for. For Courage, this
company has the courage to have extremely low airfare rates, but at the same
time, they also have the courage to charge individuals for absurd things.
Honesty is the one thing that this company has going for them, as far as the
virtue theory goes. This company knows that they want to charge extremely low
rates and they state the charges that they will charge you clearly on their
website. As far as temperance goes, this company does not think they are doing
anything wrong and therefore they think that they should not change their way
of operating this company. Justice and fairness is another area that this
company is not corresponding with these characteristics. Fairness and justice
revolves around fair practices. One example of not using fairness and justice
is reducing their aircrafts bathrooms from three to one, just to add six seats.
This is not fair to customers due to being on a plane for 1-3 hours and only
having 1 bathroom for 125+ people. As one can see, the virtue theory does not
exist inside this company.
The first thing that this company
must do, in order to change their ways, is that they must get on better terms with
their customers. Customers are the main reasons as to how far a company will
go, in terms of profit, revenue and future/returning customers. The first way
to get on better terms would to be to raise the price of the airfare tickets,
but then decrease and if possible eliminate the hidden/unnecessary fees. For
example, having an overweight fee may not be the best way to go about charging
fees to customers. This company has many
fees, which may complicate customers, and if they minimize these costs, the amount
of passengers will increase significantly.
The next way to get on better terms
with the customers would be for Ryanair to treat customers with more respect.
This is where the toilet situation comes into play. Adding six more seats and
eliminating two bathrooms may keep the prices lower for passengers, but it may
not be necessary with all the bad publicity with only having one bathroom but
minimizing costs by only $3 a seat. By treating customers more humanely and
with respect, this will want their customers to come back to Ryanair and to
refer their friends to this company.
The final piece that this company
may want to put in place is to listen to their customers. Instead of thinking
that what they are doing is right, use the resources available and see where
the customers complaints are and react to them. Any company is going to have some
sort of feedback about your business and if the company looks into common areas
of concern and fixes those areas, this company will be much more ethically
appreciated.
"Cheap Flights." - Book Cheap Flights to
Europe with Ryanair. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
<http://www.ryanair.com/en>.
Leung, Jane. "Ryanair's 5 'cheapest' Money-saving
Schemes." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
<http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/17/travel/ryanair-money-saving-schemes>.
"Ryanair Holdings, RY4B:ISE Company
Performance." Ryanair Holdings, RY4B:ISE Company Performance - FT.com.
FT.com, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
<http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=RY4B:ISE>.
"Ryanair Passenger Reviews and Ryanair Customer
Trip Reports." Ryanair Customer Reviews. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr.
2013. <http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/ryan.htm>.
No comments:
Post a Comment