The one thing that amazes me is that most people seem to miss two very important points about Ryanair
1) When Aer Lingus had no real competition they charged astronomical prices (back in 1982 I paid- no I mean my employer paid - £200 for a return flight to London...er you mean Mars...NO! I mean London!) to fly anywhere. Just think about that for a moment. That's over a quarter of a century ago. Allowing for inflation and all that....The other day I booked a flight with the Mick to Gatwick in January for and all-in price of €20 return. If the 'one-trick-pony' was looking to maximise profits in the way that his (mostly Aer Lingus employee) detracters depict then there is no way that we would have witnessed the unprecedented consumer price deflation that he has brought about. We might be flying return to London for €3,000 (using the pint-inflation-index - from 1982) instead of current prices.
POINT 1: Ryanair is consumer-friendly if price is the key indicator)
2) A merged RA/AL will be bad for Irish aviation competition. WRONG. And this is a point that Bertie missed all the time. I have booked lots of very cheap flights from Dublin to destinations that Aer Lingus doesn't serve. What! - on routes where Ryanair has a monopoly? Surely not! Jenny YES!!! (well you called me a girl's name first). People seem to miss this point all of the time - O'Leary's target market is not Ireland - we're too small - it's ... well basically...it's the world (He'll probably get to the astronomical oyster eventually). He has used Ryanair to bring huge (and I use that word advisedly) tourist traffic to Ireland - patrioism in extremis. Next time you're on the Ryanair site mouse-over Stansted - his main European hub - then try and find the airport that comes closest in terms of destinations served. Guess what- it's Dublin. Is that because there are so many people from Dublin demanding so many flights to so many destinations? Clearly not with the population size of Ireland. Ryanair is bringing millions of people to Ireland that would never come unless Ryanair served their airports. The by-product is that it gives us the opportunity to travel - cheaply (I did Dinard for €0.01) to places we never dreamt of.
POINT 2) BIG picture time folks - Ryanair - is good for Ireland. Almost everything that Michael O'Leary has predicted has come to pass - if you want to blame him for anything blame him for the congestion in our airports (although he did warn them about what he would do to passenger numbers). Why not believe him now? At least he is giving a guarantee about the Heathrow slots. What are Aer Lingus offering in this regard?
At least the B****** has democratised travel which is more than you can say about soccer in Ireland. I'm off to clean my baby's boots.
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