Intercontinental budget flights are coming

Ryanair is going to start flying intercontinental low fare routes, says CEO Michael O'Leary in an interview in the industry magazine Flight International. He sees it as a logical next step to use the company's European route network as a base for intercontinental traffic, to keep his current and rapidly expanding fleet busy. But O'Leary also states that it won't happen overnight; the European expansion is currently keeping the company busy.

This year Ryanair, with its 35 million passengers, has grown bigger than British Airways. In the next five years Ryanair expects to grow to 50 million passengers per year, and then double again to 100 million by the year 2015. Somewhere around there O'Leary thinks that he may need an intercontinetal flights project to fill his planes. So don't hold your breath for Ryanair to New York.