There are two things everyone knows about Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. One: He can have a way with words sometimes. Two: He and his airline are really, really cheap.
A Wall Street Journal profile, explaining why O’Leary thinks the €100 million ($109 million) coming his way for stewarding the budget airline’s rise to a record stock price — “If premiership footballers are earning f—king 20 million a year and [French soccer star Kylian] Mbappé is being paid 130 million to go play football for f—king Real Madrid, then I think my contract is very good value for Ryanair shareholders,” he told the paper — also explains where he picked up his flinty corporate ways.
According to company legend, he once went to dinner with former Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher, whose company’s massive, weather-related Christmastime delays in 2022 were the result of its preference for smaller, less-expensive airport transfers instead of a traditional hub-and-spoke model. Kelleher explained that his airline would take advantage of deregulation to revolutionize the industry. Then they got really, really drunk.
O’Leary told the Journal that he woke up under the table at 4 a.m. Later, when he saw how quickly Southwest planes were turning their flights around (deplaning, cleaning, taking off again), he was inspired. And now Europe’s fliers are paying the price — or not.