The Ryanair Board of Directors agreed to pursue a five-year plan which includes the potential for transatlantic service. The service would require the acquisition of a new fleet for the long-haul flights, a challenge which will almost certainly require a few years to overcome but the carrier indicated it is in discussions with both Boeing and Airbus on the topic. The carrier appears to be maintaining its focus on secondary cities on the European side of the potential operation (e.g. Cologne, Berlin, Dublin, Stansted, etc) while talking about larger options on the US side (e.g. Boston, Chicago, New York City, Miami, etc.). Some of those US cities could potentially be served to secondary airports but that becomes much harder when immigration facility considerations come into play.
And, as expected, the news of the possible service comes with talk of ridiculously cheap promo fares, as low as 10 pounds. Norwegian and WOW have recently launched LCC operations across the Atlantic and neither is showing profits from the efforts yet but Ryanair believes its business is more mature and better able to scale into the market. As one of the largest carriers in Europe by passenger count it certainly knows how to get people on to planes, so that part shouldn’t be too hard.
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Just because Lufthansa treats it like a secondary city — Berlin is anything but. It’s the largest city in Germany and the capital.