Ryanair is planning to launch a service to five or six US cities within three to four years that will offer flights for as little as €10.
The Irish airline plans to cash in on the open-skies agreement recently signed by the EU and US by launching a transatlantic service "by the turn of the decade", according to chief executive, Michael O'Leary.
The airline will serve five or six destinations through secondary airports, such as Long Island in New York, Rhode Island in New England and Baltimore. Mr O'Leary said he expects the cheapest fare to be $12 (€10) for US passengers flying to Europe.
It will fly from the 23 European bases from which Ryanair expects to be operating by mid-2009. A number of US airports have already approached the carrier about the plan. Mr O'Leary believes that sales of food, drink, duty-free goods and in-flight entertainment will boost revenues earned by the service.
But in a break with Ryanair's existing policy of only offering standard seating, it will also offer premium-class seats that will compete with the business class services offered by airlines with established long-haul businesses.
The service will be operated at arms length by a new business, separate from Ryanair, but owned or controlled by the Dublin-based carrier. The company will have its own board and management and will not collaborate with Ryanair on cross-ticketing or luggage transfers.
It will buy a fleet of up to 50 craft from either Airbus or Boeing. Mr O'Leary said that it will purchase the planes when prices fall after the current surge in orders for craft eases.
The Ryanair chief executive outlined the plans to aviation industry magazine Flight International, which will publish the interview with him next week.
The publication of its plans will end long-running speculation about whether or not Ryanair would enter the long-haul market.
Mr O'Leary has been questioned about this in the past, but has never given definite answers beyond saying that if it were to happen, it would be done by a separate entity to Ryanair.
The fact that the company has decided on the structure and size of the fleet indicates it has been working on this for some time.
