Ryanair has axed its subscription scheme after members received more than £5.2m off flights in just eight months.
The budget Irish airline announced on Friday that it will close the membership deal following a “trial period”.
In March, Ryanair launched the exclusive discount scheme for frequent flyers with perks on seats and travel insurance.
Priced at £79/€79 for a year-long subscription, members could benefit from reserving seats for free, free travel insurance and access to 12 annual (one per month) member-exclusive seat sales.
Members also received regular emails about upcoming exclusive flight sales and relevant offers, and could book an unlimited number of flights with the discounted Prime fares.
From 28 November, no new Prime passengers will be able to sign up for the low fare offers.
The existing 55,000 Ryanair Prime members will continue to have access to exclusive monthly flight deals until October 2026.
Ryanair CMO, Dara Brady, 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 [£3.6m] in subscription fees.
“However, our Prime members have received over €6m in fare discounts, so this trial has cost more money than it generates.”
According to Mr Brady, this subscription revenue “does not justify the time and effort it takes to launch monthly exclusive Prime seat sales”.
He added: “With over 207 million 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.”
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