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Ryanair claimed its Prime subscription scheme was a ‘no brainer’ for frequent flyers, but it failed to attract anything like enough customers and has now been ditched

Budget airline Ryanair has announced the immediate closure of a loyalty scheme to new customers after failing admitting it was loss-making.

The no-frills carrier only launched its £79 a year Prime subscription in March, offering free reserved seats, free travel insurance and access to 12 annual (one per each month) member-exclusive seat sales.

It claimed that “Prime” members who took a dozen flights per year would save up to £420 , or more than the times the cost of the subscription Ryanair said the scheme was limited to 250,000 members on a first come, first served basis.

But the Irish airline has now announced it will be scrapped after just 55,000 people signed-up.

Ryanair said all those existing members will continue to get exclusive monthly low fare offers until October next year, but no new members will be allowed to sign up.

Dara Brady, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, called the scheme a “no-brainer” for frequent flyer when launching it back in March.

But speaking now, he said: “Over the years, customers have asked for a Ryanair members scheme, so we trialled this ‘Prime’ scheme over the last eight months.

“To date, we have signed up over 55,000 Prime members, generating over €4.4m (£3.86m) in subscription fees. However, our Prime members have received over €6m (£5.26m) in fare discounts, so this trial has cost more money than it generates.

“This level of memberships, or subscription revenue does not justify the time and effort it takes to launch monthly exclusive Prime seat sales for our 55,000 Prime members. We are grateful to our 55,000 Prime members who signed up to this Prime trial over the last eight months, and they can rest assured that they will continue to enjoy exclusive flight and seat savings for the remainder of their 12-month membership.”

He went on: “With over 207m passengers this year, Ryanair will continue to focus on delivering the lowest fares in Europe to all our customers, and not this subset of 55,000 Prime members.”

Ryanair recently made a change so that passengers have to use to use digital boarding passes only. Since November 12. passengers will no longer be able to download and print a physical paper boarding pass. Instead, they will have to use the digital boarding pass generated in the “myRyanair” app on their mobile device -smartphone or tablet -during check-in process to board any of its flights.

RYANAIR will not moved forward with a planned subscription service saying it was too expensive.

The budget airline launched a trial of the subscription service in March which offered fee-paying passengers discounts on fares.

But it today revealed it was scraping the scheme, revealing that it was costing more money than it was bringing in.

The Ryanair ‘Prime’ membership cost £79 for 12 months, which worked out to £6.60 per month.

Ryanair revealed the program had signed up 55,000 subscribers which had generated £3.8 million in subscription fees, but had doled out £5.3 million in fare discounts.

“This trial has cost more money than it generates,” Ryanair chief marketing officer Dara Brady said in a statement.

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“This level of memberships, or subscription revenue does not justify the time and effort it takes to launch monthly exclusive Prime seat sales.”

While the Prime service ended today, the 55,000 members would be able to continue using their subscription for the 12-month period for which they’d paid.

The scheme allowed members who flew 12 times per year to save hundreds on hidden fees, such as reserved seats and travel insurance.

Members were also be granted access to exclusive seat sales, giving them the best deals on flights throughout the year.

According to the low-cost airline, Prime members who flew 12 times per year saved up to £420, more than five times the subscription fee.

And members who flew three times a year with the airline still saved £105 through the new scheme.

Ryanair is not the only budget airline with a membership scheme.

Wizz Air launched its ‘All You Can Fly’ membership, allowing unlimited flights for a yearly fee last year.

The Wizz Air membership costs £500 for an entire year, with 50 routes across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia included in the scheme.

Wizz Air ‘All You Can Fly’ members still have to pay a £9 booking fee for each flight taken as well as other fees like carry-on luggage and checked baggage.

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