Forget Amazon Prime – Ryanair now has its own membership program featuring “Prime” discounts, including free reserved seats and travel insurance.
Ryanair is talking a page from one of the world’s largest retailers and offering a bundled subscription to their flyers.
The Irish ultra-low-cost-carrier announced the launch of Ryanair Prime, a package offer limited to the first 250,000 passengers who sign up on the carrier’s website.
“Prime” Service Includes Reserved Seats and Exclusive Sales
The “Prime” subscription costs flyers around $102 (£79 GBP) per month, and offers some of the options only offered as add-ons from their base fare. This includes free reserved seats when booking a flight, as well as free travel insurance for the passenger.
The bundle also includes “access to 12 annual (1 each month) member-exclusive seat sales.” While Ryanair has not elaborated on what those sales may entail, they claim that members who travel with them at least once per month stand to save over $500 each month with “Prime.”
“Ryanair ‘Prime’ is a new subscriber discount scheme for frequent flyers that want to fly regularly but don’t want to break the bank to do so,” airline chief marketing officer Dara Brady said in a statement. “Even ‘Prime’ members who only fly 3 times per year will still save £105 – more than the £79 cost of becoming a “Prime” member.
The move comes as Ryanair celebrated a milestone. The airline announced on March 27 they have carried 200 million passengers in one fiscal year. Ryanair claims this is a new record for most passengers carried by a European airline.
