Airblue From San Marino, joined May 2001, 1797 posts, RR: 13 Posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 592 times:
November 28th, 2001:
RYANAIR TO FIGHT LUFTHANSA’S DIRTY TRICKS CAMPAIGN
Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline today criticised the German high fares carrier Lufthansa for running to the German Courts yesterday - without any notification to Ryanair - to get an injunction to prevent Ryanair advertising the enormous savings which German consumers can now make when flying with Ryanair instead of Lufthansa from Frankfurt.
Ryanair also criticised the Press Department of the Cologne Court for giving an injunction to Lufthansa without even notifying Ryanair of the case or allowing Ryanair the opportunity to defend itself.
The Chief Executive of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary said today;
"This Court action by Lufthansa yesterday is typical of the dirty tricks employed by Lufthansa to prevent competition for air travel in Germany. Lufthansa can’t match Ryanair’s fares, so they creep into German courts late at night without telling anybody and get injunctions which are designed to prevent German consumers being made aware of the arrival of competition in air travel to/from Germany.
Ryanair has instructed lawyers today to enter an immediate defence to the Lufthansa action and we will be appealing this injunction in order to have it lifted. I can also confirm that Ryanair will continue to advertise the fare comparisons between Lufthansa’s rip off air fares and Ryanair’s low air fares to and from Frankfurt designated airports and Ryanair will not be deterred by these dirty tricks employed by Lufthansa. They just prove that Lufthansa can’t match Ryanair’s fares.
Consumers in Germany have been denied low fares for years by the Lufthansa monopoly. Ryanair will ensure that they will not be denied low fares by Lufthansa’s dirty tricks either"
>I think the first proposit of LH (that's not written in the FR press realased) is mainly against the advertising about the using of the word "Frankfurt airport" by FR in spite of "Hahn Airport". I don't think LH could do nothing against the great FR fares if only follow them.<
Ikarus From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2001, 3524 posts, RR: 2 Reply 1, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 517 times:
If I read it correctly, the thing Lufthansa is protesting against is the fare comparison in adverts. Lots of airlines find it bad practice to compare one way fares, which are often more expensive than returns. Easyjet got sued for the same practice last year.
Also, advertisements that call the competitor by name have only been legal in Germany for 2 years now, and they are still more limited than in America or the UK. So LH may not be used to finding their name in the competitor's advert...
Personally, I find these ads slightly disatesteful anyway, rather loudmouthed and bitchy...
BelugaBoy From Belgium, joined Mar 2001, 139 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 494 times:
It all about the use of the WRONG name when talking about airports and I hope LH wins this case and RyanAir have to start using the correct names !
Not one other company is allowed to lie like RyanAir is doing right now !
I am not in favour of LH high fares but in the case of the adds I do support them.
If RyanAir is so much cheaper, let them use that fact to sell tickets but not cheating on destination names !
By doing that they proove themselves that there is almost no market for flights from/To Hahn !
Airblue From San Marino, joined May 2001, 1797 posts, RR: 13 Reply 6, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 475 times:
I think that the problem of the advertisements that call the competitor by name is one:
offer the same service.
(ie. : in an advertising of a telephone company who call a competitor you get the same service with two different price, call from my phone to phone B and not from my neighbours phone to phone B neighbours)
In the FR case they compare a Frankfurt Main- Milan LIN flight to an Hahn- Bergamo BGY flight.
This is like in the telephone exemple.
To make a correct comparative advertising u have to compare from point A to point B and not from near point A to near point B.
In this case LH is right.
But FR could offer its fares without any Courts problems if they tell to pax the correct informations.
(ie. : we offer a 85% cheaper air ticket than competitors from Hann (100Km north of Frankfurt) to Bergamo (50Km east of Milan). Also we provide a bus service to downtown in connection with our flights)
Udo From , joined today!, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 464 times:
Typical LH behaviour! They are just unable to face competition and try to play every dirty trick to kick competitors out or keep them out of "their market".
Go Ryanair, the LH opponents are in full support of breaking LH's monopoly!
easyjet, where are you?
Daks From Ireland, joined Oct 2001, 158 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 455 times:
It reminds me of Aer Lingus , way back when Ryanair were just starting up and promising lower fares than EI and BA on the Dublin - London route . Both EI and BA had a total monopoly for years and did'nt like the idea of losing it so they tried everything in there power to stop Ryanair , bringing them to court whenever they could over very trivial matters . But good old Ryanair stayed strong and look at them today , still making the majors shake in ther boots.
Daks From Ireland, joined Oct 2001, 158 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 432 times:
I think they were Banco
this is taken from Ryanairs website
In 1986, Ryanair broke the high fare cartel which was then operated by the two state airlines Aer Lingus and British Airways on the Dublin-London route. The Dublin-London route had stagnated at about 1 million passengers per annum between 1975 and 1985, and was then characterised by some of the highest air fares in Europe. Prior to Ryanair, the normal airfare between Dublin and London in 1985 was £209 return. Ryanair began services on the 23rd May 1986, with two turbo prop BA 748 aircraft, and an introductory launch fare of £94.99 return. Air travel between Dublin and London would never be the same again. Ryanair was the first European airline specifically set up to offer low fares on short-haul intra-European routes. In our second full year of operation, our 120 people carried just over 82,000 passengers on two routes.
Banco From United Kingdom (England), joined Oct 2001, 14752 posts, RR: 55 Reply 12, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 429 times:
Yes, that's correct but don't forget that they didn't become a true low-cost carrier until well after that, basically when O'Leary joined. Up until then they were a bit of a basket case. The FR pre-O'Leary and the FR of today are very different beasts.
She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.
Flying-Tiger From Germany, joined Aug 1999, 3963 posts, RR: 26 Reply 13, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 414 times:
Sorry, but Ryanair´s statement is total bull****.
Again they name Hahn Frankfurt which isn´t by far the same. Or shall we start calling Southhampton a London airport?!?!? Exactly, you got it. And that´s what Lufthansa is working against, the completely wrong designation of the airport. BTW they are doing nearly the same again, calling Lübeck Hamburg which is nonsense, too.
And Ryanair had compared the highest possible LH BUSINESS return class fares with their lowest possible one-way fares. This is clearly a misleading of customers.
Udo, where do you see a LH monopoly? Certainly not in the domestic market. LH has a strong presence there, yes, but it is by far not a monopoly. There are other domestic carriers - admitely not large - but you forget one thing: The Deutsche Bahn´s ICE high-speed train network competes heavily with domestic flights.
Daks From Ireland, joined Oct 2001, 158 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 409 times:
Thats true Banco O'Leary certainly shook them up when he joined , he takes no prisioners .I don't know if you've seen any of his interviews on television but he dosent like it when anyone starts to bad mouth "his airline". Did you hear what he did and said about the whole Aer Lingus fiasco ?
Udo From , joined today!, posts, RR: Reply 15, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 398 times:
There is a LH monopoly on most German domestic routes. Deutsche BA, Germania and EAE operate only few routes compared to LH's more than 50 domestic routes.
And the Deutsche Bahn is definitely not a hard competitor...I won't start to talk about their low service level now. But just look at the trip times: MUC-HAM one hour by plane, MUC-HAM several hours by train...and the fares of Deutsche Bahn on certain routes (where planes compete directly) are not very cheap...
I know some people would always praise and fly LH even though they get ripped off, but some people don't...and those want to see low-cost carriers all over the place like in the UK or the US.
Banco From United Kingdom (England), joined Oct 2001, 14752 posts, RR: 55 Reply 17, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 392 times:
I don't know about the rest of Europe but in the UK a legal definition of a monopoly is a company having 25% of the market. That is when a company is susceptible to legal restrictions. How they do it with airlines i.e. by route or total market I don't know.
She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.
Airblue From San Marino, joined May 2001, 1797 posts, RR: 13 Reply 18, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 376 times:
Monopoly is when in a market there is only ONE company.Usually in a monopoly market there are some special laws who ruled the market.
When a company has a large share of the market it's a MARKET LEADER. In these situation the other company are called "followers"
Some example:
if I have 30% of the market share and the largest followers has only 5% I'm a market leader cause I can make a big influence on the market.
if I have 30% and the largest follower has 25% I'm not the market leader, but I'm the largest competitor of the market and it's difficult for me to have a large influence in the market.
In the situation of a big Market Leader every single state has its own anti-trust rules.
Banco From United Kingdom (England), joined Oct 2001, 14752 posts, RR: 55 Reply 19, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 5 hours ago) and read 370 times:
You're talking about the linguistic meaning of the word "monopoly". Most states consider it a monopoly situation at considerably less than 100% market dominance.
Technically, the situation you describe is an "oligopoly" but as I say, laws are there to prevent the exercise of market power and also the possibility of cartels.
She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.
Racko From Germany, joined Nov 2001, 3527 posts, RR: 11 Reply 20, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 357 times:
hahn isn't frankfurt. This is a fact.
And a court has forbidden ryanair to advertise hahn as frankfurt and lübeck as hamburg. And i totally agree with the court here because that is simply cheating on the customer.
Also they compete LH BUSINESS class with ryanair shitclass (i don't know how they call their no-service class). And the ryanair fares are 1way while the LH fares are 2way fares.
It is simply a dirty misleading of the customer, and a court HAS to investigate. And, if LH would not have gone to court, the german customer-protectors would go as soon as they realize what ryanair is doing.
Daks From Ireland, joined Oct 2001, 158 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (6 years 9 months 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 341 times:
Ryanair's "shitclass" is called no frills meaning absolutley that you get nothing on board unless you pay . Fine by me .I understand the crap with calling Hahn Frankfurt and they should change that but for value for money you cant beat them. I've just got a price of £22 with FR from Dub to Man or with Aer Lingus for £136 . Now i dont think that getting a cup of airline tea/coffee and a pack of peanuts is worth paying an extra £114 for , on a 30 minute flight but if you want to go ahead.
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