Ryanair’s O’Leary expects casualties in Gulf air war
Michael O’Leary, chief executive of low-cost airline Ryanair, this week took time out during a trip to China – where he eyed Chinese built passenger jets – to offer some thoughts on the prospects for Middle East Airlines,
Reported by Wall Street Journal, O’Leary said, “You’ve got these Gulf airlines coming in and ordering ludicrous … numbers of long-haul aircraft. It’s almost a penis competition.
“[But] you can’t have three big Gulf interconnecting carriers all at the same time. They’re going to kill each other. Somebody wins and two or three people lose,” he said.
One winner, O’Leary suggested, might be a low-cost trans-Atlantic airline and any shake-up among Middle Eastern airlines could be the key.
The main prerequisite for a low-cost trans-Atlantic carried would be the availability of cheap, long haul aircraft, which would happen, O’Leary indicated, if one or more of the Gulf carriers – Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways and Gulf – failed.
O’Leary said if “sorting out” of competition among Gulf carriers coincides with the elimination of a backlog in deliveries of long-haul aircraft such as Boeing’s 787 and Airbus’s A380 over the next four or five years, he expects to see “a lot of spare long-haul capacity,” which would set the stage for low-cost trans-Atlantic airlines.
Ian Jarrett
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