Ryanair Talking Bollocks (Again)
28/06/08 21:40 Filed in: General
Nonsense
Ryanair
CEO Michael O’Leary was on The Last Word on Thursday
evening, arguing against the provision of the Dublin
North Metro project. This is a pet topic of Ryanair,
and one that I noted their opinions on
before.
(Download an MP3 of the interview here.)
But this time O’Leary excelled himself as the arrogant, pompous, “Look at me, I’m on the side of the consumer” little gobshite that he is. His schtick is that because the majority of passengers come to airports in cars, therefore they are not interested in any other form of transport to get them to and from Dublin Airport. During the debate, his views were challenged by Sean Murphy, Director of Policy at Chambers Ireland. Whenever Murphy spoke, O’Leary could be heard making derisory snoring noises.
What he failed to say is that Ryanair have a commercial interest in maintaining the status quo. They have a deal with Hertz at the airport, and earn commission on referrals to Hertz from the Ryanair website. In addition, car parking is a valuable revenue stream to the DAA, and any reduction in that would doubtless lead to higher landing charges for airlines like Ryanair.
Still, expecting them to come clean would be futile. This is after all the airline that tried to pull a fast one on Munster fans earlier this year. Predicting as far back as January that their team would reach the final in Cardiff in May, fans booked the 6.50am flight on Ryanair to Bristol for fares in in the region of €50 or so. Once Munster won the semi-final, Ryanair ‘rescheduled’ the flight to 3pm (which would have been too tight to make the 5pm kick-off time), and offered fans a full refund if the new time didn’t suit. But a few days later, the 6.50am flight miraculously reappeared, this time priced at €229.
But this time O’Leary excelled himself as the arrogant, pompous, “Look at me, I’m on the side of the consumer” little gobshite that he is. His schtick is that because the majority of passengers come to airports in cars, therefore they are not interested in any other form of transport to get them to and from Dublin Airport. During the debate, his views were challenged by Sean Murphy, Director of Policy at Chambers Ireland. Whenever Murphy spoke, O’Leary could be heard making derisory snoring noises.
What he failed to say is that Ryanair have a commercial interest in maintaining the status quo. They have a deal with Hertz at the airport, and earn commission on referrals to Hertz from the Ryanair website. In addition, car parking is a valuable revenue stream to the DAA, and any reduction in that would doubtless lead to higher landing charges for airlines like Ryanair.
Still, expecting them to come clean would be futile. This is after all the airline that tried to pull a fast one on Munster fans earlier this year. Predicting as far back as January that their team would reach the final in Cardiff in May, fans booked the 6.50am flight on Ryanair to Bristol for fares in in the region of €50 or so. Once Munster won the semi-final, Ryanair ‘rescheduled’ the flight to 3pm (which would have been too tight to make the 5pm kick-off time), and offered fans a full refund if the new time didn’t suit. But a few days later, the 6.50am flight miraculously reappeared, this time priced at €229.