It's no joke when fear replaces the laughter
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Thursday September 09 2010
MICHAEL O'Leary once wrote a letter to the Irish Independent in which he jokingly promised to stop being a "boorish capitalist" -- a label given to him after yet another of his ridiculous press conferences.
During these events, he loves to throw around insults and blame unions, ministers, officials and other assorted idiots for various airline and aviation-related woes.
It struck me then, and stays with me now, that O'Leary, despite his bombast and startling outbursts, is actually quite thin-skinned. He typed the letter himself and dispatched it by fax, sticking to his do-it-yourself motto.
We all know it can be hard flying Ryanair. Like most aviation experiences these days it's a demeaning, stressful encounter with security, officious airline staff and their jobsworth demands to squeeze everything into postage stamp-sized hand luggage.
Publicity is a medium O'Leary intimately understands. That's why we're now hearing that he wants to do away with co-pilots.
If he had a euro for every headline and Twitter post about his latest wheeze, his sizeable personal fortune would double. Predictably his single pilot idea has made global headlines.
In previous controversies, such as the idea of charging passengers €1 to use the toilet, the reaction of most passengers and critics has been one of laughter and a sense of 'Oh, there's Mad Mick, off he goes again'.
This time though, it feels different. This time it seems O'Leary may have made a rare miscalculation.
That's because his idea has been greeted not with mirth, but fear.
Fear that Ryanair is thinking of cutting even more corners. Fear that Mr O'Leary has begun to play poker with our safety. Fear that a Ryanair flight could become a game of chance where the lives of all 300 passengers are at the mercy of one individual, not in the capable hands of two.
O'Leary has said that one of the cabin crew could be trained to land the plane in an emergency. Great, you can imagine the scene. "I'm sorry, the sale of bingo cards has been suspended because Ivana (Ms April in the Ryanair calendar) is trying to land the plane."
O'Leary told me in an interview last year that safety was the one thing that kept him awake at night, that it was his ultimate concern.
So it's a mystery as to why he has now chosen to make a joke of it.
Someone yesterday said he might next suggest dumping a wing from each plane, as they obviously have two.
Airlines need the confidence of their customers. When it's gone, it's gone. In chasing publicity at any cost, one wonders if Mr O'Leary is beginning to cut Ryanair's throat?
- Ciaran Byrne
Irish Independent
