Ryanair is in talks with International Airlines Group and Aer Lingus about providing transfer connections for its rivals' long-haul services for the first time in its 30-year history, Chief Executive Michael O'Leary told Reuters.
The move is a major change for how Europe's largest low-cost carrier operates - it previously shunned the transfer market due to the costs involved.
"What we see over the next five or ten years is that we become a feeder for other long-haul airlines," O'Leary said in an interview at his office in Dublin.
"The advantage for them is they would get much cheaper short-haul feed than they would from anybody else, but what they have to get themselves mentally over is that they would have to take responsibility for missed connections."
Under the proposed system, customers would buy their tickets from the long-haul carrier, who would be responsible for checking in the customer, handling their bags and taking responsibility for any missed connections.
The cost of compensating people for missed connections is one of the reasons Ryanair has avoided the business in the past.
Ryanair would, however, offer to fly passengers on later flights if the initial Ryanair connection was missed.
Ryanair has not yet finalised an agreement with Aer Lingus, but O'Leary said it could begin providing feeder traffic for its Irish rivals before the end of the year.
"I see no reason why it couldn't happen this winter, November," he said.
O'Leary said Ryanair had also spoken to Portugal's TAP about feeding traffic from Lisbon, and Norwegian Air Shuttle and Virgin Atlantic about flights at London's Gatwick.
He said he had spoken with IAG "in the context if IAG were to do something long-haul out of Stansted," a major operational hub for Ryanair.
IAG is expected to formalise its €1.3 billion takeover of Aer Lingus in the coming weeks after securing the agreement of Ryanair to sell its 30% stake.
Connecting passengers will be a "reasonably small part" of Ryanair's business, O'Leary said, but low-cost carriers could feed up to 50% of passengers to long-haul carriers flying from Europe within five to 10 years.
