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When Rhys met Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair

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I was at the Andaz Liverpool Street hotel on Tuesday, where Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary was announcing its biggest winter schedule ever, with flights from 21 UK airports.

(By a crazy coincidence, I was also staying at Andaz Liverpool Street on Tuesday night to review it for HfP. This was arranged before the Ryanair invitation appeared.)

Arriving 20 minutes late (from a Ryanair flight…?!) O’Leary rushed into the room ripping off the bubble wrap from a blue-and-yellow sign heralding the announcement. He began telling his assistant to sort out his laptop whilst he handed out paper copies of the press release for journalists.

Ryanair press conference

I have a lot of respect for Michael O’Leary. Most airline CEOs tiptoe around questions and harp PR platitudes. O’Leary doesn’t. After mucking in to get the conference set up he immediately launched into an impressive, fast-talking 10-minute presentation, hammering home everything he wanted to cover. He’s direct, gets the job done and gets on with it.

It’s rare to be at a press conference that’s interesting. O’Leary actually makes it fun, firing zingers left, right and centre.

So, whilst we wouldn’t normally write about Ryanair, we thought it would be an interesting opportunity to write about what Michael O’Leary thinks about the issues plaguing the airline industry in 2022.

The Gospel According to Michael O’Leary

On Heathrow ….

Ryanair doesn’t fly from Heathrow, and doesn’t have any plans to. This didn’t stop O’Leary from letting us know his views on the UK’s biggest airport.

Branding it ‘Hopeless Heathrow,’ he admonished airport management for failing to fix their staffing issues and instead choosing to implement a passenger cap right through the summer and into the winter.

Of course, Heathrow wasn’t the only airport that experienced delays at the start of the summer. Gatwick and Manchester were also affected, although O’Leary claims that both airports have now recruited to eliminate those problems and are operating much more smoothly.

Not so for Heathrow: instead of recruiting more staff, “the visionary way to serve your customers is to cap them”.

He did offer a solution to the problem. Shareholders “could start by firing John Holland-Kaye [the CEO] out of Heathrow.” I am genuinely shocked this hasn’t happened already, to be honest.

On Her Majesty’s Government ….

“Scrap Air Passenger Duty and scrap hard Brexit” is what O’Leary said when asked what his top priorities would be for the new Prime Minister. “Grant Shapps would be no loss to the transport sector” either ….

O’Leary takes a pragmatic view on Brexit. Whilst Brexit won’t change, he did rail against “Johnson’s hard Brexit” which has resulted in what he perceives as the most difficult labour market in Europe. “At least put in place some free trade agreement with Europe to allow UK and European citizens to move to and from Europe to work …. do a Brexit deal that makes sense for UK consumers and the UK economy.”

The Civil Aviation Authority wasn’t spared either. “What have the CAA ever done for us?” O’Leary’s view is that the CAA is fundamentally powerless – although “I wouldn’t give the CAA any more power, I would ban them.”

Ryanair press conference

On a recession ….

The ‘R’ word was at the tip of everyone’s tongues, although O’Leary was remarkably bullish on the subject. “We will grow stronger in a recession, as we have in every other recession before.”

Instead of cancelling holidays, O’Leary sees passengers trading down to cheaper carriers, which inevitably means flying Ryanair. “It’s BA and easyJet that will struggle.”

Fears of cratering demand and increased oil prices have meant many airlines are reducing schedules. Ryanair, meanwhile, is increasing them, and is hoping to mop up all the demand left on the table. Wizz Air, for example, is trimming its schedules by 25% because it failed to hedge its fuel costs.

Ryanair has hedged 90% of its fuel requirements to March 2023 at around $63/barrel and 40% at ~$93/barrel until March 2024. Whilst Ryanair’s average airfare will rise in the single digits over the next 3-4 years the airline will continue, claims O’Leary, to grow to 225 million passengers in 2025, from around 166 million this year.

Ryanair is also getting good deals from regional airports, where there is a golden opportunity “replacing aircraft and capacity that has disappeared from their airports as a result of covid or the financial collapse of airlines.”

Overall, he predicts that European aviation in 2023-2024 will lag pre-covid numbers but that Ryanair will be bigger. That’s not a hard target to achieve given that the airline is already opearting at 115% of 2019 capacity this year. “I’ve never tempered a growth plan in my life – it’s full steam ahead.”

On Boeing ….

Ryanair’s growth will depend on the arrival of aircraft it has ordered, however. The airline has a total of 210 737MAX on order, which it will use to replace and expand its network. The planes will deliver massive savings, as they can take eight more passengers than the older 737s whilst being 16% more fuel efficient.

The only question is whether Ryanair gets them on schedule with just over 50 due to arrive this winter. Right now, O’Leary thinks the jury is out on whether Boeing can deliver. “You’ll get more excuses than aircraft deliveries [from Boeing] this winter.”

He says “Boeing are running around in fucking denial,” with surplus engines and surplus wings waiting for aircraft on the final assembly line to move out. He places the blame firmly on Boeing’s mismanagement of the program: “it’s not supply chain issues, it’s bad management in Seattle.”

On Ryanair ….

Of course, his main reason for being in London was to trumpet Ryanair’s winter schedules.

With flights from 21 airports, it will be Ryanair’s biggest winter schedule ever, with five new bases opening including Belfast. In total, Ryanair will operate over 2,000 routes from October to March, with fares starting from £29.99.

“The era of low fares is not over but the £9.99 fares, really cheap and cheerful fares, are over for a couple of years.”

Category

General

Comments (175)

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  • Lucy says:
    1 Sep1 September 05:58

    Fascinating article. Love him or hate him O’Leary is a breath of fresh air

  • TimM says:
    1 Sep1 September 06:04

    Yes, I nominate Michael O’Leary, for his bluntness, to be an Honorary Northerner. We could do with more public figures like him who are not constrained by their media training and official PR lines.

    From my recent experience of both, I would say Ryanair has overtaken easyJet in terms quality. Ryanair is no longer the shocking cattle carrier of old and easyJet has repeatedly reduced its service standards, comfort and offering while having higher fares.

    • AlisonV says:
      2 Sep2 September 16:28

      Have to say I’m still an Easyjet fan – at least they make a (half-hearted) attempt to treat their frequent customers a little better, you get huge amounts of nothing from Ryanair.
      I even have to say I’d rate Easyjet over BA at the moment, for cleaner planes, happier staff and a schedule that works….

      Agree re Michael O’Leary – a bit of character wins every time in my book

  • Mike says:
    1 Sep1 September 06:14

    You’ve got to love O’Leary, I need freedom of movement so I can pay low wages….

    “some free trade agreement with Europe to allow UK and European citizens to move to and from Europe to work”

    It’s funny, in the old days a trade deal had nothing to do with freedom of movement. That exists in the EU so that as jobs move to another country you can move to chase them, modelled on the US and people moving from state to state, unfortunately for the Eurocrats there’s a barrier to that called two dozen languages. That’s why it was very one sided and over 6.5m people have applied to live in the UK post-BREXIT under the EUSS.

    • William Smith says:
      1 Sep1 September 06:31

      Famously, there were no Brits living in the EU prior to brexit. Trade deals have always involved migration. Visa waivers, quotas, freedom of movement in the EUs case.
      The UK chose to reintroduce complexity including a dual regulatory regime. There are no benefits whatsoever for the airline industry. O’Leary is right.

    • NorthernLass says:
      1 Sep1 September 06:44

      It always bemuses me how O’Leary, a foreigner who isn’t even domiciled in the UK, spends so much time telling the UK government what to do! That said, Ryanair is the best airline, IME, for value, punctuality and space in extra leg room seats if you want to fly direct from the regions!

      • Thywillbedone says:
        1 Sep1 September 07:38

        Perhaps it’s because the UK government doesn’t seem to have a clue WHAT to do??

      • Michael Jennings says:
        1 Sep1 September 09:35

        He is CEO the largest company in Europe in a highly regulated industry. The UK is his largest market. Seems to follow fairly obviously to me.

      • Callum says:
        1 Sep1 September 12:31

        I genuinely despise that attitude. Either the argument has merit or it doesn’t. Dismissing someone simply because of their nationality is borderline xenophobic.

      • QFFlyer says:
        2 Sep2 September 17:10

        In fairness, the Irish aren’t really considered foreigners, they have the right to enter, live and work in the UK free of immigration controls and if resident can vote in all elections…ok he’s not resident, but he could be.

    • David says:
      1 Sep1 September 09:12

      You lost me at ‘Eurocrats’; pity you didn’t throw it in sooner.

    • John says:
      1 Sep1 September 11:53

      @Mike

      “That’s why it was very one sided and over 6.5m people have applied to live in the UK post-BREXIT under the EUSS.”

      6.5 million permission slips is not 6.5 million new residents. It was perfectly rational for people who met the eligibility criteria – even when no longer living here – to avail of a legal option on returning. As with so many other aspects of Brexit, had we introduced something vaguely resembling an ID card decades ago, you wouldn’t be able to make wild inferences about settlement because we’d already know, precisely, who was living here.

    • Londonsteve says:
      1 Sep1 September 11:56

      The reality is that nowhere near 6.5m EU citizens live in the UK today and very likely weren’t living here even on Referendum Day. The UK abjectly fails to maintain records of foreign citizens resident in the country in the way that other European countries do, requiring registration at the local town hall and the possession of a registration card. This can only be done in person, presenting one’s passport or ID card from another country. The UK also has no exit immigration controls so it has no idea who has left from those that arrived. The UK’s laissez-faire regime results in people coming and going but having no accurate data as to who’s here. The only real restrictions are on the border on arrival where (in theory) strict checks are carried out. NI numbers were adduced as a proxy but there are double the number of NI numbers issued to EU nationals compared to those actively in use. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the EUSS deadline was used by many people who formerly lived in the UK and had already left, but registered themselves in order to keep a foot a door in case they wanted to return while some people applied for Pre-settled status who may plan to come to the UK in the future (e.g. to join family and friends already resident) but were unsure about their plans at that stage. In order to be eligible one needed to fly to the UK for as little as 1 day in the year before the deadline , thereafter they would have 6 months after the end of the registration period to take up their residency rights. The truth is we have no idea how many EU nationals are really living in the UK; one thing is for sure, their numbers have heavily declined to a combination of Brexit and covid when a great many went home and never returned (while retaining Settled or Pre-settled even now, which will ultimately expire if they fail after 2 years or absence).

    • SAS says:
      1 Sep1 September 12:30

      Exactly. His a card ain’t he.

  • david says:
    1 Sep1 September 06:15

    I enjoy flying with Ryanair. From A to B with minimal hassle if you play the game. The bloody scratchcard announcements, those, I could do without.

    • Michael Jennings says:
      1 Sep1 September 09:49

      I am with you there. I also enjoy flying with Ryanair, but the scratch card thing makes me wince every time.

      My main disincentive to flying with Ryanair is that immigration at Stansted can be dreadful at peak hours in the late evening, but that isn’t really their fault. In terms of positives, their filter coffee is easily the best in-flight coffee available from an airline I regularly fly.

      • Jonathan says:
        1 Sep1 September 10:25

        Michael O’Leary does choose to avoid airports he doesn’t like, even though they’re great for things like connecting flights, or as a starting point for another ticket.

        Admittedly LHR in particular haven’t been running things very well at all so far this year at all …

  • SydneySwan says:
    1 Sep1 September 06:21

    BA and Ryanair are closing in on each other but from different directions. Soon Ryanair could be the better airline.

    • ChrisBCN says:
      1 Sep1 September 06:46

      After stoically rejecting Ryanair since I last flew on them 20 years ago, I’ve been starting to consider them – I need to book a specific date flight in the next few days and they have the best timings and best price (even considering ancillaries)… They may well get my money.

      • Marcw says:
        1 Sep1 September 07:12

        If you follow their rules, all great.

        • William Stewart says:
          1 Sep1 September 08:27

          I agree if you can spell your name correctly, write your passport number without a mistake and turn up on time 95% of the time you will have no hassle.

    • NorthernLass says:
      1 Sep1 September 06:46

      It’s already better if you want to fly from the regions.

      • Tracy says:
        1 Sep1 September 11:30

        Yes, I fly Ryanair more than BA. I’d rather fly Ryanair direct than BA via London even if the price was the same 😱, I’m not a good flyer…long haul is a different proposition though.

    • Jonathan says:
      1 Sep1 September 10:26

      Apparently Alex Cruz still runs BA !

  • Michael C says:
    1 Sep1 September 06:46

    Any mention of the ongoing strikes in Spain?

    • Rhys says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:50

      Yes, but again bullish. Ryanair is such a big company now that it faces strikes one or another part of the business on a regular basis…

  • Charles Martel says:
    1 Sep1 September 07:13

    Well known credible news source, Zero Hedge, recently reported that US airline ticket sales are down 23% on the same week (21/08) in 2019. Has the pent up demand been sated and is the cost of living starting to bite? If so Heathrows strategy might not look so stupid.

    Again if true, and replicated in Europe, it will be interesting to see how airlines balance high oil prices and falling demand – will we get lower prices or capacity reductions and higher prices?

    • NorthernLass says:
      1 Sep1 September 07:21

      I have been wondering if the current ridiculous hotel and car hire prices are putting people off travelling. I’m not sure I would be prepared to pay that kind of money in the long term, e.g. Avis quoting £1300 for their cheapest 2 week rental next summer!

      • @mkcol says:
        1 Sep1 September 07:25

        £1300 for 2 weeks where though?

        Maybe you need to consider other companies.

        • NorthernLass says:
          1 Sep1 September 07:41

          It was just one example! Though prices across the board are horrendous.

      • Marcw says:
        1 Sep1 September 07:44

        That’s def a factor. And peeps have overspend during the summer…

        • Brian78 says:
          1 Sep1 September 09:34

          Once winter kicks in and inflation hits 15-20% there’ll clearly be an impact on demand. This winter could make the winter of 2020 look like a teddy bear’s picnic, depending on what Putin does (I’m not talking about the travel industry, more in general)

      • Thywillbedone says:
        1 Sep1 September 07:48

        As a single data point, I am preparing to bin a trip to Thailand in December …have secured very good hotel rates but flights in Y are now nearly £3k for 3 people (non-direct) v. £1.5k in 2019 the last time I travelled. I did miss out on good J deal at the start of this year but didn’t expect all options to dry up so quickly …

        • Marcw says:
          1 Sep1 September 08:23

          The problem is there’s not enough capacity. Pretty much everything has to go through the Middle East. And those airlines are not at pre-COVID capacity to Thailand.
          Demand is higher compared to capacity.
          I also paid €1.1k to travel in July – at least I’ll get €600 back as arrived to destination very delayed. Buy prices are way over the top.

      • Michael Jennings says:
        1 Sep1 September 09:53

        I’m still travelling, but I am certainly not enjoying the present level of hotel and car prices.

      • Andrew. says:
        1 Sep1 September 10:07

        To quote a Spokesman from Edinburgh Festival on STV.

        “Chief among these however is the soaring cost of accommodation in Edinburgh in August – audiences and artists alike are being priced out of town, out of experiences,” the spokesman warned.” “It is clear to anyone spending time in Edinburgh that there are fewer people in the city this year than in 2019.”

        Well, they weren’t the only issues. Edinburgh was a Filthfest this year with the bin strikes. Rail strikes and Scotrail policy to short-form services was unhelpful, and £600 HBO BA domestic flights with zero Avios availability didn’t inspire me to travel this year.

    • Lady London says:
      1 Sep1 September 07:58

      The industry made that choice at least since around May, if not earlier, and the choice made was tp reduce capacity.

      I can’t say I blame them.

    • Rui N. says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:28

      “Well known credible news source, Zero Hedge” LOL. I had to double check you were actually talking about “the” Zero Hedge. You know that’s a far right website bankrolled by Putin, right?

    • Rhys says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:52

      You have to remember that most airlines can’t really match 2019 demand because they simply do not have the aircraft. There is less supply, which has lead to increased ticket prices etc

  • AJA says:
    1 Sep1 September 07:39

    “At least put in place some free trade agreement with Europe to allow UK and European citizens to move to and from Europe to work …. do a Brexit deal that makes sense for UK consumers and the UK economy.”

    Yeah right! Never going to happen. The EU can’t and won’t allow the UK to prosper outside of the club. It’s OK to sell EU products to the UK, it’s also OK for EU citizens to work and conduct business in the UK without being resident (O’Leary is a case in point – and his EU based airline gets to fly to and from the UK without having a UK subsidiary) but heaven forbid that the UK gets to do the reverse – BA only gets away with it because IAG is Spanish. EasyJet had to set up subsidiaries in the EU to comply with EU “free trade” rules.

    As Tim says above the only benefit to freedom of movement is to allow poorly paid EU citizens to come to the UK and be paid poorly in GBP terms but well off compared to their home country. BA too has been caught out with this and happily retrenched thousands of staff using Covid as an excuse thinking that they could recruit cheaply again once the recovery started. Instead they’ve had to give double digit increases and pay bonuses to encourage former BA staff to return since former BA staff have discovered they can earn more at tge local supermarket or in an Amazon warehouse.

    As for the £10 Ryanair fare – that never really existed on a permanent basis, it was at best a promotional fare for a few thousand seats. Even his £29 fares are one way so in reality you pay £58 unless you don’t intend to come back again.

    But he is right about LHR. Holland-Kayei s useless. As is his counterpart Doyle at BA which is taking advantage by offering some eye watering fares. Apparently according to rumours over at FT a sale is supposed to kick off today but I’ve not seen it.

    • Rob says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:09

      You seem to be missing the bit that let you go and work (or live) anywhere in the EU ….

      • AJA says:
        1 Sep1 September 08:30

        @Rob Yes but which which way does O’Leary want the benefit to work? He’s not arguing for more UK citizens to be employed operating his purely EU routes is he? He wants more cheap EU labour to fly his UK routes rather than pay higher UK wages.

        You also seem to be suggesting that there are more UK citizens wanting to live and work in the EU than the other way around. And you know that’s not true. The freedom of movement rules benefit EU citizens – they are not designed to benefit 3rd Country citizens from working and living in the EU. This is called cherry-picking and the EU won’t allow it because at heart it is a protectionist organisation. If it allows freedom of movement to UK citizens it must also allow the same to those from South East Asia. And it risks France or any one of a dozen other EU countries doing their own Frexit – that can’t be allowed to happen.

        • Paul says:
          1 Sep1 September 08:39

          When the U.K. was in the EU I could be phoned by my boss on a Friday and told to go to client A in (say) Antwerp on Monday, client B in Brussels on Tuesday and client C in Paris on Wednesday, all hours billable to the client, no visas or other government paperwork required. That, I believe, was as a result of FOM.

          • AJA says:
            1 Sep1 September 09:26

            I agree with you but again O’Leary isn’t arguing for those reasons. He wants the ability to employee cheap EU labour to fly his UK routes not the other way around.

            And the point is the EU isn’t going to allow the UK to operate like your employer did again while it is stays outside the EU.

        • Erico1875 says:
          1 Sep1 September 09:01

          AJA quote
          “As for the £10 Ryanair fare – that never really existed on a permanent basis, it was at best a promotional fare for a few thousand seats. Even his £29 fares are one way so in reality you pay £58 unless you don’t intend to come back again.”
          I can assure you those fares existed.
          We flew to Dublin, Paris, Milan and Dusseldorf for a penny each way
          Also did Palma, Girona, Malaga, Murcia , Alicante and Faro for a tenner EW.
          Apart from COVID, Ryanairs growth year on year has been phenominal

          • Rob says:
            1 Sep1 September 09:12

            Ahem https://www.headforpoints.com/2020/02/10/what-is-it-like-flying-ryanair/

            But as APD is well over £5 then clearly you can’t expect seats for less then that long term …..

            I doubt you expect Tesco to sell you wine for less than the duty charged per bottle.

          • AJA says:
            1 Sep1 September 09:19

            I didnt say they never existed. You missed that I said on a permanent basis ie it was a promotional fare and not the base fare on a permanent basis. Ryanair was making a loss on each of those fares which is why it was always limited to the first 30,000 or whatever. It was never on sale to all 166 million passengers. The vast majority of fares you pay are significantly higher than £10.

          • QFFlyer says:
            2 Sep2 September 17:18

            I remember years ago paying £6 each way on a “no taxes” fare to Dublin. Of course that just means FR paid the taxes, and there’s zero way that was profitable, but it balances out, because someone last minute will have prob paid £400 for the seat next to me.

            They were limited, first come first serve, and dates released in blocks (I had to book the return separately, gambling on it being available), but it worked out. Of course if I’d missed out on the return, I’d have just paid £50 for a flight instead, hardly breaks the bank, but it was nice to get two of us to DUB for a weekend for £24 in total. Prob paid more to park the car at STN…

    • lumma says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:19

      If you search on Skyscanner for London to “everywhere” outside of school holidays, you still find plenty of £10 routes

      • AJA says:
        1 Sep1 September 08:33

        But those are purely promotional fares too. They must be since APD is higher than that.

        • Freddy5 says:
          1 Sep1 September 09:12

          Au contraire – they are planned prices as part of a pricing/ load strategy that factors in many elements – such as filling an empty seat that would fly the route empty or not/ income from F&B & luggage & priority boarding & choose your seat/ drumming up happy customers for more profitable ticket sales another time etc.

          Just be prepared to keep to the Ryanair rules, fly light, don’t worry about sitting together (ooh darling I couldn’t bear sitting apart from you for 2 hours, however would we cope?) – and the era of (minus) -2p flights is still with us (see directly below).

          • AJA says:
            1 Sep1 September 09:36

            Yes but they are not the base fare for every Ryanair flight – they are purely promotional. They are designed to attract you to fly with Ryanair and if they help keep loads up and earn any money rather than fly with an empty seat then so be it.

      • Freddy5 says:
        1 Sep1 September 08:40

        …plus you get £8.40 (and a slightly discounted Ryanair ticket) back with Budgetair. My son and I recently got direct return flights (ie 4 flights) to a lovely European capital city for (minus) -2p each after they paid us our 4 x £8.40, which has already gone into the bank a/c. You need to book the tickets separately using usual method.

        A lot of the best Skyscanner prices are for indirect flights, ie you typically get to fly Ryanair twice to arrive at your intended destination. No problem if you’re a penniless student with time on your hands or can enjoy the place in the middle for a day or 2. Otherwise make sure you have a nice long connection time for your 2nd flight. There’s no compo or DOC if you miss the 2nd flight.

        • lumma says:
          1 Sep1 September 10:26

          Those indirect flights aren’t cheaper because they’re indirect though. You can price up the individual legs for that. Some of the OTAs say they’ll guarantee the connection if you book through them, but I’ve got no idea how that works

          • Freddy5 says:
            1 Sep1 September 12:55

            Some of them offer guarantees that resemble the main airline guarantees you get when buying 2 tickets on the same order, ie if you miss flight #2 because flight #1 was disrupted, they’ll put you up in a hotel etc if needed and give you a new ticket for flight #2. Trip dot com & Kiwi, for example. But they don’t give you £8.40 back like Budgetair.

    • Perkypat says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:20

      O’Leary is Irish, so his ability to live and work in the UK has nothing to do with the EU.

      • AJA says:
        1 Sep1 September 09:32

        But he doesn’t live in the UK. He is not tax domiciled in the UK. But he is definitely taking advantage of the ability to work in the UK because of the specific arrangement between the UK and Ireland which pre-dates the EU.

        Why doesn’t he recruit staff from the EU into Ireland, give them all Irish citizenship and then let them work in the UK? /s

        • Soloflyer1977 says:
          1 Sep1 September 13:05

          I know Ryanair is powerful but I suspect that does not extend to “give them all Irish citizenship”…

          • AJA says:
            1 Sep1 September 18:40

            I wasn’t seriously suggesting that. That’s why I put the “/s” at the end of that sentence – I was being sarcastic…

    • Rui N. says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:30

      There’s a Ryanair UK subsidiary. And the UK had to allow all those freedoms for EU based airlines in any case, otherwise BA would lose its licence (being owned by a Spanish company).

      • AJA says:
        1 Sep1 September 09:11

        That UK subsidiary which has existed since 1985 is not the one that your money goes to when you buy a fare for travel on Ryanair. It exists purely as a leasing company renting aircraft to Ryanair DAC, the actual EU based airline. Furthermore the UK company actually made a loss in the last two years so no tax was paid to the UK exchequer. In fact it has an unrecognised deferred tax asset of over €1 million so won’t be paying anything for the foreseeable.

        • Rui N. says:
          1 Sep1 September 09:44

          What has existed since 1985 is the UK company. That’s not an airline. The UK airline only got it’s AOC in 2019

          • AJA says:
            1 Sep1 September 10:08

            I apologise, reading the latest available filed accounts there is a note that says in the year to March 2021 the business shifted to earning revenue from the sale of flights. And according to Wikipedia it now has a fleet of 8 aircraft. I look forward to the next set of accounts to see what the revenue from airfares actually was.

            On the other hand since UK airlines have to have EU subsidiaries to operate within the EU it seems fair that EU airlines should do the same within the UK.

          • Rui N. says:
            1 Sep1 September 10:22

            I have no idea what you are on about. I simply corrected your statement that Ryanair didn’t have an UK subsidiary.

    • ChrisBCN says:
      1 Sep1 September 08:34

      It’s almost like the ‘policy’ was a bunch of slogans cobbled together to convince the ‘low information’ segments of the British public….

    • Ins says:
      1 Sep1 September 09:21

      I’m trying to move to Europe and get a job due to family reasons and the process is extremely painful, so I wouldn’t say the only reason for freedom of movement is lower wages…

    • Bagoly says:
      1 Sep1 September 10:26

      The fact that the EU is a bully which throws its weight around in trade (like America does militarily) is why it was a not-smart move to destroy the oversize influence we had on it.

      And you need multi-state governments to face down powerful companies – Brussels does the tech companies, Washington does the banks – who polices the UK water companies?!

    • Henk says:
      1 Sep1 September 10:51

      Do you really think all EU citizens working in the UK are poorly paid? Or indeed that all EU countries have lower wages than the UK, so they are “poorly paid here but well off compared to their home country”? Quite a few EU countries have higher average wages than the UK

      • AJA says:
        1 Sep1 September 11:47

        @Henk – Of course I don’t think all EU citizens working in the UK are poorly paid!. Far from it. What I meant, and you choose to ignore, is that cabin crew, specifically, are poorly paid but rather than increase the pay to them, meaning possibly higher airfares to the paying public, O’Leary would rather import even more poorly paid EU workers to fill the gaps in crew numbers.

        The point is that for many EU citizens on low wages the UK still pays them more (due to the UK’s National Living Wage legislation) than they would earn in their home country. That does not mean all EU citizens would prefer to do this either. And it does not mean all EU countries pay lower wages than the UK either, before you suggest this.

        Would you work for Ryanair or BA or IB or Finnair or any airline in fact, for the starting wage they offer? If not, that does not mean that no one will, but as the airlines are finding out neither does it mean that they will all work for them for a pittance.

      • SAS says:
        1 Sep1 September 12:52

        People don’t leave their country to earn less money, get a grip on reality!

    • Londonsteve says:
      1 Sep1 September 12:15

      If O’Leary isn’t given greater flexibility to recruit staff from elsewhere, he will find a solution, which in the case of a trans-European airline will involve throttling capacity at UK bases while increasingly servicing the UK from bases in Europe where he can employ local staff at local rates. I think his problem is more lack of staff per se, than complaining about UK wage rates (which aren’t all that high compared to elsewhere in western Europe). The time zone difference works in their favour in this regard because a flight can take depart at 6am in Milan and be on the ground at STN by 7am local time. Most UK consumers would prefer an 0730 departure time to Milan, other than a hardy few, most people resent the bleary 6am departures. Wizz Air UK came into being partly as a hedge against a no-deal Brexit, partly as part of their expansionist approach, eyeing routes to and from the UK that were formerly a carve-up between Ryanair and Easyjet. It’s quite ok for Wizz Air and others to fly to the UK from a European base using local staff who might be paid a fraction of UK rates, which they may have to if UK workers are conspicuous by their absence.

      • Rhys says:
        1 Sep1 September 12:32

        Ryanair is actually in the midst of negotiating contracts with unions, with 8-10% pay rises across the board.

        • Brian78 says:
          1 Sep1 September 21:20

          Still probably 10% below where inflation will peak

        • Londonsteve says:
          2 Sep2 September 12:29

          Which sort of proves the point I’ve made, that Ryanair’s problem (like the rest of the industry) is lack of bodies to do the work, rather than objecting to the wage rates (putting aside disagreements about inflationary pay rises). The days of importing unlimited quantities of European workers from countries with much lower wage levels is clearly over, not only because of work permit requirements in the UK but also because wage rates in CEE are fast closing on UK levels due to their relatively high growth rates and the UK’s ongoing anemic economic performance. Average salaries doubled in Hungary in only 5 years and it’s not even the CEE region’s best performer. Average net salaries in Sofia now actually exceed those in Budapest. These economies are no longer the 10 stone weaklings many people think they are. Recruiting from these countries to jobs in western Europe is harder than ever unless the financial package on offer is clearly excellent.

      • TimM says:
        1 Sep1 September 16:54

        Many Ryanair flights between the UK and ‘country B’ originate in ‘country B’ with ‘country B’ crew so Ryanair is already avoiding the UK regulations.

        As for pay rates, there are a huge number of young people who regard being cabin crew as a glamorous career and will take a pittance in salary and conditions to have a chance to start. Their pilots have to pay for their own training and are essentially mortgaged to the airline for their specified contract period. It is all a little Dickensian.

        • Londonsteve says:
          2 Sep2 September 12:32

          Is it correct to say that they are ‘avoiding’ UK regs. Surely, they are doing something they are allowed to do, therefore they are in fact complying with them?

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