He’s the airline boss with a VERY blunt reputation – and now Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary wades into cabin crew wages row All these gender pay reports are meaningless NONSENSE!
HOW many Ryanair passengers have not, at some point on their travels, been frustrated to learn that the airport they are being flown to is more than an hour away from their intended destination? The answer: at least one.
‘I’ve never!’ says Michael O’Leary with a glint in his eyes. The longstanding chief executive acknowledges that Ryanair is renowned for utilising ‘secondary’ airports, making it the butt of some ‘good jokes’. But he says times are changing – three quarters of his planes now land at ‘primary’ airports.
Have passengers noticed this customer-friendly switch? Perhaps not. In January, Ryanair claimed the dubious honour of being named as British flyers’ least favourite short-haul airline – for the sixth year in a row – by consumer group Which? During 25 years at the top of Ireland’s most famous low-cost airline – which now attracts around 150million passengers annually – O’Leary has built up a reputation as the industry’s most outspoken and controversial boss.
Living up to this image, the Irishman predicts that a number of his rivals will be bought by their peers, dismisses gender pay gap reporting as ‘meaningless rubbish’ – and even questions the footballing ability of a former England captain. It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that O’Leary quite enjoys being seen as the bad boy of the airline industry.
‘It’s not a question I enjoy it,’ says O’Leary. ‘We’re trying to grow up a little bit. We’re trying to be less confrontational than in the past. We have misbehaved in the past. We were inclined all the time when a newspaper would raise a genuine issue, we’d go up in a storm of, “Oooh! We’ll threaten to sue you!”
‘Now we say, look, if we’ve made a mistake, we’ll come out with our hands up and say we’re sorry we made a mistake. But it is what it is.
‘Do I enjoy being the bad boy? No. Do I want to be the good boy? No. But as long as we’re continuing to deliver lower fares, more choice and a better service for our customers – and customers continue to flock to us – then we will live with whatever reputation we have.’
O’Leary is speaking to The Mail on Sunday in the lobby of a plush conference centre in Brussels. Along with the chief executives of British Airways owner IAG, easyJet and others, he is here for the annual Airlines For Europe summit.
Many corporate bosses do not enjoy the limelight of such events. This could not be said for O’Leary, who happily skips between the main stage and backrooms of the conference to be filmed on European television stations. As is his trademark, O’Leary spends most of the day with his glasses propped up in his mane of bushy grey hair.
O’Leary, 57, joined Ryanair as a director in 1988, having started his career at accountancy giant KPMG, and has been chief executive since 1994. The airline started out in 1984, when it carried passengers in a 15-seater Bandeirante aircraft between Waterford, in South East Ireland, and London Gatwick. This year, despite being the bete noire of consumer groups, O’Leary expects Ryanair to fly 154million passengers across Europe – up from 142million in 2018.
However, these impressive numbers are not translating into financial strength. Rising fuel prices, flight disruptions caused in part by air traffic control strikes in mainland Europe and fierce competition have forced Ryanair to downgrade profit expectations twice recently. The looming prospect of Brexit – which Remainer O’Leary is vehemently opposed to – has not helped.
It could be worse for Ryanair. Flybmi, as well as a number of other small European carriers, have collapsed this year. O’Leary predicts there is more to come, and that within five years there will be just five main airlines in Europe: Ryanair, IAG, Germany’s Lufthansa, Air France KLM and easyJet.
In a series of blunt forecasts that are likely to irk his rivals, O’Leary predicts IAG will buy Norwegian Air and Tap Air Portugal, Air France KLM will acquire Alitalia and Wizz Air will be sucked into Lufthansa.
Who will Ryanair buy? ‘Nobody,’ says O’Leary firmly, before adding that ‘opportunities, though, do crop up’. He does rule out any interest in Norwegian Air and Thomas Cook.
Ryanair surprised the industry last month when it announced that O’Leary had signed a new – and potentially lucrative – five-year contract, keeping him at the airline until at least 2024. The boss had previously hinted that he may be on his way out this year, telling reporters he was ‘not sure Mrs O’Leary would be happy’ if he stayed on. ‘I’ve been suggesting that for 33 years,’ he now clarifies. As part of a company restructure, O’Leary will be chief executive of Ryanair as a group, while new bosses will head up four divisions: the main airline, Ryanair UK, Poland’s Ryanair Sun and Austria’s Laudamotion, which the firm bought last year.
As part of his deal, O’Leary – already one of Ireland’s richest men with an estimated net worth of around €1billion – is sitting on a potential €100 million windfall. The deal enables him to buy 10 million shares in the firm at their February price – just over €11 – if Ryanair’s profits double to €2billion or its share price rises to €21 in the next five years.
In the coming weeks, Ryanair – along with all other large British employers – will have to file its latest gender pay gap report. Last year’s figures did not make for pretty reading, with the airline revealing its male employees are paid on average 72 per cent more per hour than female colleagues – an enormous gap, even by industry standards. Does Ryanair have a problem? ‘Complete and utter nonsense,’ says O’Leary. ‘The challenge...when you get these nonsensical pay reports – which are meaningless rubbish – is you have a huge proportion of pilots who are male and a disproportionate amount of women are cabin crew.’
He says Ryanair is trying to fix the disparity by recruiting more female pilots and more male cabin crew. He also said last week that he would favour a woman replacing him as chief executive of Ryanair one day.
O’Leary argues that his industry, and chief executives in general, receive an excessive amount of scrutiny on pay, illustrating his point using football’s Premier League.
‘Nobody ever says anything about the Premiership football clubs,’ he claims. ‘But they talk about CEO pay – it’s always, “Uuuuh, you’re paid a million, five million a year”.
‘Bloody Premiership football! Wayne Rooney, or whoever it is, is having £20-25million a year – for what? Kicking a football. And he doesn’t even do that well any more.’
How many chief executives would risk offending millions of customers with controversial comments about national sporting icons and gender pay gaps? The answer is: at least one.
We misbehaved in the past... now we’re trying to grow up a little bit
Wayne Rooney – or whoever it is – gets £25m a year. For what? Kicking a ball