The wit and wisdom of Ryanair’s boss
As Tiger Airways under its new boss in Australia, Crawford Rix, aligns itself ever closer with Ryanair’s charge-for-everything model, no doubt the Tiger chief will be mugging up on some of the choicest quotes delivered by Ryanair’s Irish boss, Michael O’Leary.
The quotes, taken from ‘Plane Speaking: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael O’Leary’ published by Aurum Press in the UK, come via the Telegraph Online.
On overweight passengers: “Nobody wants to sit beside a really fat person on board. We have been frankly astonished at the number of customers who don’t only want to tax fat people but torture them.”
On turbulence: “If drink sales are falling off we get the pilots to engineer a bit of turbulence. That usually spikes up the drink sales.”
On transatlantic flights: “Ryanair will never fly the Atlantic route because one cannot get there in a Boeing 737, unless one has a very strong tail wind or passengers who can swim the last hour of the flight.”
On the airline industry: “There are a lot of big egos in this industry. Most chief executives got into this business because they want to travel for a living. Not me, I want to work.”
On charging passengers to use the loo: “One thing we have looked at is maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door so that people might actually have to spend a pound to spend a penny in the future.
“If someone wanted to pay £5 to go to the toilet I would carry them myself.”
On upright seating: “I’d love to operate aircraft where we take out the back ten rows and put in hand rails. We’d say if you want to stand, it’s five euros.
“People say ‘Oh but the people standing may get killed if there’s a crash’. Well, with respect, the people sitting down might get killed as well.”
On the in-flight experience: “Anyone who thinks Ryanair flights are some sort of bastion of sanctity where you can contemplate your navel is wrong. We already bombard you with as many in-flight announcements and trolleys as we can. Anyone who looks like sleeping, we wake them up to sell them things.”
On travel agents: “Screw the travel agents. Take the ******* out and shoot them. They are a waste of bloody time. What have they done for passengers over the years? ”
Ian Jarrett
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