Ryanair to offer flight transfers in bid for wider appeal

Ryanair will start offering connecting flights later this month, a senior executive said Thursday, marking a break from its traditional point-to-point model as it looks to appeal to a broader spread of customers. The airline rose to become Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers by running a bare-bones operation shunning transfers due to their complexity and the risk they would keep planes on the ground for too long. CE Michael O'Leary dropped his opposition in 2015 and said the airline would look to trial transfers as part of plans to expand beyond its traditional customer base. Ryanair will roll out connections, initially between its own flights, at the end of April at Rome Fiumicino, chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said Thursday. This would allow for example a journey from Dublin to Palermo, Sicily, which has no direct service. <br/>