Tuesday 14 October 2008

The Vulgar Mr O'Leary

I have just been trying to track down a quote from Michael O'Leary along the lines of
"I want to drive out the sh-tty competitors".

All I could find were the following rather vulgar comments:

"Code-sharing, alliances, and connections are all about "how do we screw the poor customer for more money?"
and
"Air transport is just a glorified bus operation."
— Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, quoted in
BusinessWeek Online, 12 September 2002


Most complaints, O'Leary tells me, are generated by the company's no-refund policy. "We don't fall all over ourselves if they... say my granny fell ill. What part of no refund don't you understand? You are not getting a refund so f-ck off."
and
"There is too much: 'we really admire our competitors'. All bollocks. Everyone wants to kick the sh-t out of everyone else. We want to beat the cr-p out of BA. They mean to kick the cr-p out of us."
How low can you go?
By Graham Bowley, FT.com site; Jun 20, 2003


RELEVANT LINKS
BusinessWeek Online, 12 September 2002
How low can you go?By Graham Bowley, FT.com site

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bizarre! These comments are not dissimilar to Gerald Ratner's "...it's total crap!"
It is indeed a sad indictment of the airline industry today when one compares the caliber of O'Leary with Sir Richard Branson. The first has the integrity of a sewer-growth, and the latter, that of a precious metal.
Unfortunately, the majority of airline customers are painfully ignorant in thinking that most English speaking carriers, BA, AA, United etc, have caring, Branson type leaders running the firms - alas the reality is that they are mostly like O'Leary, and have the capabilities of an uninsured, unlicensed, un-MOT'd London mini-cab driver.
So, perhaps then O'Leary has given us a rare insight; you (and I) may rightly think him a vulgar oddity, but he is actually representative of today's airline executives, except his peers also usually possess that terribly useful American Ivy League MBA, and the identical tassled loafers and lovely boxy suits to match.
People should read between O'Leary's lines, (especially as what was on the lines was so incoherent,) and choose their travel carriers very, very carefully.
Having worked and travelled with most of the airlines, I, for one, am sticking with Virgin, Lufthansa, Swiss and Cathay Pacific! (No, I'm not an employee of any of these, simply someone who likes a good degree of service and certainty when travelling).

Rob S said...

Boycott him!

Rob S

Sheila Burns said...

Rob (S)
Thank for sending this over.
Just totally outrageuos that a man (animal?) like this shoul dbe allowed to run a business.

Enough is enough. Yes - boycott Ryannair.

Anonymous said...

For sheer joy tune into Utube and see the 50p ticket song from Fascinating Aida - it sums up Ryan Air to a t!

Fiona Bevan said...

For a perfect antidote to O'Leary see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc

Unknown said...

Cheers Fiona

Robert

Wils said...

An old maxim once again rings the bell of reality

If it's too good or cheap (on first look) then it probably is!

Wils said...

An old maxim once again rings the bell of reality

If it's too good or cheap (on first look) then it probably is!

Anonymous said...

For sheer joy tune into Utube and see the 50p ticket song from Fascinating Aida - it sums up Ryan Air to a t!