Is O’Leary about to be ejected from the hotseat?
As Ryanair holds its first ever closed AGM...
THE MEDIA is being barred for the first time ever from Ryanair’s forthcoming AGM.
Asked by the Irish Daily Mail to explain why the decision was taken, the company’s chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said the airline didn’t want its AGM to be ‘hijacked’.
He didn’t specify who might want to disrupt the AGM – or how. But if it does happen, the airline doesn’t want that to become the story when the meeting is held next Thursday at a location that was last night still ‘to be confirmed’.
Mr Jacobs said: ‘From our point of view, the most important thing at the AGM is that our shareholders get to have an open conversation with the board, as they always do. We don’t want that to be hijacked by any groups and we don’t want that to become the story at the AGM.
‘I don’t think shareholders are saying they need a report from the Press to understand what’s happening... they get that directly from the company.’
Some of the most famous disruptions to occur at AGMs in Ireland include eggs being thrown in 2011 at the then Bank of Ireland CEO Richie Boucher and at AIB’s AGM in 2009.
So far, dissent at this year’s AGM is more likely to revolve around a vote by shareholders to – in effect – get rid of CEO Michael O’Leary. Although he is the man shareholders owe the company’s success to, a number of them say they have had enough of what can sometimes come across as a devil-may-care attitude.
Earlier this week, investment adviser Pension & Investment Research Consultancy (Pirc) recommended that shareholders vote against his re-election.
It is a symptom of growing unease among shareholders and customers about industrial unrest at the company, which last night insisted it was dealing with it. Speaking at yesterday’s announcement that 450 new Ryanair pilots are to be trained at the Atlantic Flight Training Academy at Cork Airport, Mr Jacobs said: ‘We will never say we are shy about the media.
‘We are quite happy to hijack opportunities ourselves for free publicity, but what we don’t want is somebody doing the same at our expense. We just want to keep any distractions, any sideshows, out of the meeting.’
Asked if Ryanair, which has dealt with repeated industrial action taken by unions since the airline recognised unions nine months ago, is expecting trouble, Mr Jacobs replied: ‘If you look at our AGMs in the past, we generally haven’t.’
Asked if continued industrial unrest could destroy consumer confidence in the Ryanair brand, he replied: ‘Absolutely not.
‘We have an agreement in place with Irish pilots, so we don’t expect disruption in Ireland and across the rest of Europe.’
Expert has advised against re-election
RYANAIR has banned the media from its AGM and said it doesn’t want journalists to witness angry scenes.
While that at least has the virtue of honesty, the company must realise that any attempt to keep a lid on dissent will fail, and also is strategically wrong.
If it can’t publicly defend its decisions, perhaps that is because these should not have been made in the first place.