When Ryanair launched its first continental base in April 2001 at Charleroi Airport, a smallish aerodrome in a remote part of Belgium some 45 km from Brussels, many observers ― admittedly mostly in Belgium ― doubted the Irish carrier would succeed. After all, the experiment had been tried before without success by EuroBelgian Airlines in the early 1990s. Even since Virgin Group acquired that failing airline in 1996 and rechristened it Virgin Express, results have been mixed. Nevertheless, Ryanair proved the doubters wrong, declaring after a year of operations that Charleroi had been a "huge winner" with 1 million passengers carried. Beginner's luck? Maybe, but how then to explain Ryanair's strong performance at even-more-remote Frankfurt Hahn, a good 100 km from the city, which became its second continental base last February. The result "has even surprised ourselves," says CEO Michael O'Leary.
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