Ryanair plans Buzz overhaul

WCRS and Media Planning Group (MPG) are set to lose the &£3m advertising and media accounts for low-cost airline Buzz following its sale to rival Ryanair.

Ryanair is buying the budget division of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines for &£15.8m and will review its contracts with all suppliers.

Ryanair, headed by chief executive Michael O’Leary, creates its own advertising and handles media planning and buying in house. Ryanair spent &£1.52m on advertising for the year ending September 2002 (Nielsen Media Research).

The acquisition is also likely to spark redundancies among the four-strong UK Buzz marketing team, which is led by head of sales and marketing Adam Harris.

Ryanair’s marketing team is led by sales and marketing manager Sinead Finn, who replaced sales and marketing director Tim Jeans last year (MW June 27, 2002). Jeans left to join MyTravel’s low-cost airline venture, MyTravel Lite, as managing director.

A spokeswoman for Ryanair says: “Our policy is to keep down costs and fares, and this will be reflected in our scrutiny of Buzz in the next few weeks.”This week, Ryanair revealed record traffic and profit growth for the third-quarter of 2002. The company’s profit after tax was &£28.3m, up from &£18.9m for the same period in 2001.

The acquisition of Buzz marks further consolidation in the low-cost carrier sector following easyJet’s takeover of Go last year.