All language subtitles for Turbulence.The.Story.of.Ryanair.S01E02.1080p.RTE.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-DoRN_track3_[eng]

Ryanair dominates the European sky.

Valued at 30 billion Euro,

its low-cost model has made
travel affordable for everyone.

Starting as a scrappy disruptor...

Cheers to Ryanair.

...that struggled to fly.

Ryanair was in the
brink of collapse.

This was your life's work to date.

I mean, did you feel
devastated by the whole thing?

Knocked off my ass,
if I may use a crudism.

Until a wiry new CEO executed a
brazen low-cost model.

ARCHIVE: His standard dress for
work is blue jeans and check shirts.

And transformed Ryanair into
one of Europe's top ten airlines

by the end of
the 20th century.

Everything you do contributes
towards the bottom line.

Michael O'Leary's obsession
with watching pennies

had the pounds in their
millions take care of themselves.

ARCHIVE: Ryanair profits
soared by 33% last year.

Oh yeah, it's all
about money, isn't it?

It's low cost...

...At all costs.

As the 21st century creates
new chaos for Ryanair...

(COMMOTION)

I would pay no attention whatsoever
to Elon Musk, he's an idiot.

...it's up to Michael to
navigate the turbulence ahead.

If he can't go through you,
he'll go around you.

RADIO: Ireland, you
can have the last word.

The last word.
With Matt Cooper.

On Today FM.

Cathal Thomas and
Marion McKeown are with us.

Where to start?

Actually, Marion,
you know where we'll start...

Michael O'Leary didn't
go into Ryanair

because he had any
great love of aviation.

It wasn't his ambition to
make Ryanair what it is now.

It was his ambition to make as
much money from it as he could.

Michael?
Yes?

(CAMERAS CLICK)

Got it?

One of six children, he grew
up in the 60s and 70s

in the farming
community of Mullingar.

Michael O'Leary
was a child of privilege,

no matter how much he might like to
portray himself as an ordinary man.

He was educated in Clongowes College,

an elite boarding school with
a Jesuit focus on discipline.

Michael's father was an entrepreneur

and ran a wool textile
company in Mullingar.

He would have observed his father
getting into financial difficulties.

He was the type of guy who was
always buying when everyone else

was buying and always selling
when everyone else was selling,

and that is not the way to
actually get rich in business.

I suspect that there was
always a degree of concern

for Michael O'Leary that the
lifestyle that he was becoming

used to could be taken
away from him.

After graduating from
Trinity College,

he entered the world of business.

He went where he felt
he could make money.

He wanted to make money

and make as much money
as he possibly could quickly.

If you cut him,

his DNA, he bleeds private
sector market economy.

PRESENTERS: Happy New Year!

The dawn of the new millennium,
an era of excitement and optimism.

A happy new year to all of you.

♪ (CHEERFUL MUSIC)

ARCHIVE: The much-hyped bug

which threatened to throw the
world into chaos failed to bite.

(MUSIC FADES TO STOP)

Michael O'Leary was
about to face a global crisis

that would test his mettle.

(TRAIN RATTLES)

That day,

I got a call from
the Stansted press team

saying we think you'd
better come up to our office.

There's something going
on that you need to see.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC)

I was flying four sectors,
four flights that day,

and when we came back
to Dublin and landed,

just like everybody
else was shocked.

The world lost some of its innocence
and some of the carefree nature

of travel was lost.

You instantly think of the crew.

ARCHIVE: Cabin staff overcome
with emotion who burst into tears,

aware of the fate that had
befallen their colleagues

on the four hijacked aircraft.

September 11 was just
a complete watershed

in everything but in aviation.

The World Trade Centre attacks,
9-11 brought aviation to a halt.

Airlines were cancelling orders,
cancelling routes.

Boeing couldn't sell an
aircraft for love nor money.

ARCHIVE: Continental Airlines
is laying off 12,000 people.

BUSH: One of the great
goals of this nation

is to restore public confidence
in the airline industry.

One of the effects obviously was
with all these cancelled orders,

Boeing and Airbus had orders
cancelled left, right and centre.

They might have to shut
down the production line

for their short-haul aeroplanes.

And to shut down a production
line and restart it cost billions.

So for anybody looking to buy
aeroplanes, it was a buyer's market.

Michael ordered more aircraft
when nobody was doing so.

Michael O'Leary
arrived in Seattle and said,

I'm going to buy
all those aircrafts.

The employees cheered him.

The deal of 100 new
aircraft for $9 billion

brought Boeing back
from the brink of collapse.

It was certainly one of
the best deals in history.

Michael seized the opportunity,

a gamble in a world
now nervous of air travel.

Something about
Michael O'Leary is that

he just seems to have
that natural antennae.

He has that understanding
of what people are like

and how they're going to behave.

He said, no, people
will want to go and fly.

Ryanair needed to fill
these new planes.

People questioned it at the time.

He's not going to find
the markets for this.

He's going to get saddled with debt.

Ryanair's reaction was to sell
seats to London for a tenner

and we filled
the aeroplanes.

He just made the market explode.

People who'd never flown before
and who'd never thought of flying

and who'd never thought of
a mini-break in Paris or Brussels,

suddenly those people were booking
flights and getting on planes

and getting out of Ireland
just because it was so cheap.

The new 737s went
through a Michael pass.

♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC)

The obsession on
building a lean machine

is what makes tickets low
and what makes profit higher.

When they went to
Boeing to figure out,

well, how can we make
this operating model cheaper?

They actually turned the stairs
into a step in the process to make,

again, onboarding
and offloading cheaper.

Which meant they didn't have to
buy gates closer to the terminal,

which meant they could buy cheaper
gates, which meant costs were low.

Did you really want to charge
to use toilets on Ryanair planes,

yes or no?
Yes.

If I can get rid of the 2 toilets
at the back of the planes,

I can add 6 extra seats.

With 6 extra seats, I can lower
everybody's airfare by another 5%.

There's been a lot of skimping
on things like bolt upright seats

which don't recline, nowhere
to actually put your things

because they got rid of the
baskets on the back of the seats.

They didn't want to have to go
to the effort of cleaning them.

Part of the role of the cabin
crew is to go through the cabin

with a black plastic bag,

which aesthetically
isn't very pleasing

for the customer
that's sitting there.

Ryanair and Michael O'Leary
had this intuition

that they needed to
grab our attention,

to grab the microphone.

And grab the microphone
is exactly what he did.

In economy, it'll be very
cheap fares, say 10 Euro,

and in business class,
it'll be beds and blowjobs.

(LAUGHTER)

Like, it's a very competitive
market, you've got to get ratings.

So the way to do it is to bring a
real, live, knock-down,

drag-out fight on air.

A visceral attrition is
gold dust to the media.

We've spent the last 12 years
competing with these buggers

and we're not damned if
we're going to stand aside

while somebody shovels
them another lump of money

to stuff it to us again for
the next couple of years.

He's well capable of hamming it up.

And he does ham it up.

These are Ryanair staff.

It is very ick.
It's just awful.

You create your own publicity.

Stupid politician.

He's very good at doing that in
fairness to him and has been.

Michael, I might have an idea.
You shut up!

Why pay somebody else when you can
do it like Michael O'Leary does?

Ryanair understood the idea
of the attention economy.

They knew that their ads and their
press antics were all

to serve the purpose
of grabbing our attention.

Have we done
anything wrong? No.

It was the things that people
wanted to say but couldn't,

but this brand were
ballsy enough to do it.

The way he talks about
people who are heavily obese.

These monsters taking up two seats.

For fecks sake, who says that?

He would do things in interviews

like climb up on the boardroom
table for the photographer.

And he understood, and
we understood as well,

that it was a bit of
a performance.

He deliberately is provocative
in everything he does

because he's
selling a brand.

I think Michael has very creatively
learned how to get a persona across

that people relate to and
that people buy into.

But I still think the quiet,
shy, retiring Michael

is probably still there, probably in
Gigginstown with the horses,

but they're the only
ones that get to see it.

Right, that's our photos.

ARCHIVE: In the beginning, you
could only hear the news on RTE

on the wireless.

Then you could see it on the telly.

But from today, there's a third way
to watch and listen to the news,

on the internet.

When the world entered the wide web,

Ryanair was one of the first airlines

to take us through the
looking glass.

What you did then was
you called someone.

You called either an airline or got
in touch with a travel operator or

you visited their bricks-and-mortar
offices and you arranged things.

What is significant about Ryanair
from a digital standpoint

is they were very early
to own the channel.

You no longer have to visit a travel
agent that has to take a cut.

That can cut a lot of costs.

♪ (COME FLY WITH ME)

Looking at the website from 2000,
it's really simple.

You've got just a list of the routes
and they are astoundingly low.

There's routes for £4 and £1.

Simple yet effective.

The website allowed people
to buy directly from the airline.

And within 12 months,

they were seeing the majority of
their bookings going via online.

OFF CAMERA: Cast your mind
back to Celtic Tiger era Ireland.

ARCHIVE: This is the brave
new world of the Irish economy.

One of the most buoyant
economies in Europe.

The Celtic Tiger was
like a really brash,

kind of out-there time in Ireland.

The Celtic Tiger brought so
much more inward investment,

brought all the big
companies in here.

With low-cost fares,
people were flying out

and some people were actually
getting up in the morning

and going to a job
in another country.

Nobody surfed that wave quite
as well as Michael O'Leary.

He just capitalised on it and
made lots of money out of it.

With the click of a button, Ryanair
found more ways to sell things.

Auxiliary income is all
the extras in the upselling

that Ryanair would do.

The second you click book
and you buy your ticket,

you are hit and bombarded with

a series of messages
and prompts and pop-ups.

That could be anything
from extras to food.

Extra baggage you bring
on board, changing flights.

To scratch cards.

The scratch cards and things, but
they still do the scratch cards.

Are you going to charge for people to
actually have their seat numbers?

You will have the option
of paying to select your seat

or you have the option of having
a seat allocated to you for free.

It would be your choice.

Priority boarding is a bloody
longer queue than the other one.

I don't know
what's priority about it,

but it's worth an extra 20, 30
euros a flight for Ryanair.

These auxiliaries is what
makes Ryanair profitable.

In all cases, without
charges, they are optional.

Ryanair was not the only scrappy
Irish airline to strike opportunity.

There was a little airline flying...

...initially from Galway Airport
to the Aran Islands.

I got blown away with the

aeroplane flying
across Galway Bay

and landing on
this small little runway

and the sea is coming
up on the other side.

I said, wow, this is mad.

Years afterwards,
I remortgaged my home,

got a little bit of a loan from
the bank and got a partner

and we bought the airline.

Aer Arann, a lifeline in the
west of Ireland, had ambition.

Aer Arann.
Aer Arann.

Income was quite low with a
small number of passengers.

There was about half a million
tourists coming to Galway City

every year and we'd put signs up,
flight to the Aran Islands,

so passenger numbers
started increasing and increasing.

In the 1990s, it began to expand.

So I said, we'll fly over Dublin and
fly people to Manchester, London,

Glasgow, Edinburgh, even to France.

All of a sudden, like, the airline
went from 2.5 million turnover

to about 120 in the space
of probably about four years.

We're the fastest growing regional
airline in Europe,

flying up to 20 flights a day

between Cork and Dublin
and back down again.

Next thing was, O'Leary announces
they're doing Cork-Dublin.

In 2006, Ryanair undercut Aer Arann,
running routes at a loss.

I got a message from his secretary.

Basically said, Michael
would like to meet you.

I went up and he had a big office.
He says, it's not going to work.

If I were you, I'd go back to where
you came from, Connemara.

Because I can tell you here now,
it's not going to work for you.

But I was saying, Michael,
I'm going to keep it going.

He said, well, why?

There's no leeway,
it's black and white with him.

You know, you're either in or out.

Do this, if you don't
do this, move on.

After years of battling
an aviation goliath,

Pádraig would eventually
face an even fiercer foe.

(EXPLOSION BOOMS)

ARCHIVE: This volcano
in Iceland has erupted,

spreading a plume of volcanic
ash across European airspace.

The unpronounceable
volcanic eruption in Iceland

grounded flights across Europe.

ARCHIVE: Spreading volcanic ash
has forced the cancellation

of hundreds of flights
this weekend.

At worst, the volcanic ash could
cause chaos for some weeks yet.

Aer Arann couldn't compete and
are treated back to Connemara.

We didn't have the financial
resource that Ryanair had.

Ryanair knew that.

But you have to stand back
and admire what's been done,

and I do, and I respect that,
and I respect Ryanair.

I spoke to Tony Ryan and he felt
saddened by it, quite frankly.

But at that stage, Tony was quite
old and his health wasn't great.

Tony Ryan died in 2007,

a major shareholder and
respected advisor until the end.

He was one of the
outstanding business

personalities of his generation.

He had seen Ryanair grow
from a tiny single aircraft

taking off in Waterford
to a Europe-wide network

carrying over 50 million passengers.

Tony Ryan founded two
businesses, GPA and Ryanair.

World leaders.

One of the best entrepreneurs
that Ireland ever produced.

Ireland should be the
aviation centre of Europe

and then progress
that of the world.

His ambition shaped Irish aviation.

Of all the aeroplanes in the world,
half of them are leased.

And of those that are leased, about
10,000, 70% of them,

the aviation finance
was done through Ireland.

We now have over 50
aviation leasing companies.

Aercap, we have SMBC.

For a guy from Thurles,
that's pretty good going.

The passing of Tony Ryan, a
captain of industry, a philanthropist

and a gentleman, was the end
of a rarefied era of aviation.

A new era brought new battles.

You're on record as saying
emissions are a load of bollocks

talked up by sandal-wearing Greens.

Which is actually technically true.

There's no evidence to suggest
that the globe is warming.

Clearly, climate has changed.
It will always change.

Michael O'Leary has been
on the record over the years

about being quite sceptical about
the whole idea of climate change.

And his argument, I think,
to paraphrase, was

that the climate keeps
changing and we've had ice ages

and we've had periods where the
temperature's been a bit warmer.

Michael has, at times, resisted
the reality of the climate crisis.

I try and avoid flying where I can.

Try and travel via the
lowest impact method I can.

Aviation is probably
one of the fastest ways

you can burn fossil fuels and
produce greenhouse gas emissions,

which are the things that are
heating the planet's atmosphere.

An aircraft is basically
a massive fuel tank.

It's in the wings and it's in
the fuselage or the body.

Jet fuel is perfect because
it's very energy-dense.

Jet fuel is also very cheap.

So there is a global
agreement, basically,

to avoid a tax on jet fuel.

If you buy a bottle of
water in an airport,

it costs more per litre than
the jet fuel going into your plane.

Cheap fuel has helped low-cost
carriers like Ryanair

and others to flourish.

In July, we carried our
one billionth passenger

in our 30 years of operation.

There's only 20,000 commercial
airliners in the world,

but there's more than a billion
cars, so in comparison,

it
looks relatively small.

But actually, it's a very few
number of people doing it.

The issue is endless growth.

As more people take to the skies,

a crisis deepens that will collide
with Ryanair's bottom line

sooner or later.

But first, Ryanair had
more immediate fires to fight.

ARCHIVE: It was take-off today
in the battle for the skies.

By the noughties,
EasyJet was on the rise

and threatened to hit Ryanair
where it hurt, its profits.

Because this is an inaugural flight,
I'd like to buy everybody a drink.

EasyJet, you know, talk the talk,
but they don't walk the walk.

Over the years, they
fought with everybody they

could fight with pilots,
baggage handlers,

cabin crew, you name it.

I have a feeling Donald Trump

studied the
Michael O'Leary story.

I mean, Trump got
elected by being

an arrogant little brat, saying
things other people wouldn't say.

Michael, you know, if he can't go
through you, he'll go around you.

EasyJet began to edge
into Ryanair's turf.

I believe there is a lot of scope
for carriers like us to expand

into the European continent.

I think they only opened the base
because there was rumours

that Ryanair were going to show
up and skip all of these.

I thought, shit, we better
open a base quick

before Ryanair get here.

Competition was starting get hot.

I think people were replicating
the Ryanair product,

so they needed to find a way to
compete with other airlines.

Ryanair shouldered its way
into battles with their rival.

But Michael's shtick started
to bite him

on his (DING DONG TONE)
tail end.

Fed up with meanness,
people chose the easy route.

You make real money in
the airline business

from your last passenger.

The first 100 passengers,
whatever,

are going to pay the costs.

It's the incremental ones that
actually give you the profit.

If you're upsetting
your passengers

so much that you're not
getting the last passenger,

the second, and
the third last passenger,

you're actually
reducing your profits.

Lots of the complaints that
they've had over the years

have been justified. I mean,
there's a lot of bad manners

in the treatment
of passengers.

We just came to the airport this
morning and they said the flight

was cancelled,
so yeah, very annoyed.

I think the great thing about
Ryanair is we deliver the best

customer service in
the world airline business,

which is why we're the largest
airline in the world.

Is the customer always right?

No, the customer is
nearly always wrong.

(LAUGHS)

It does feel still when you fly
Ryanair that sometimes you as

the passenger are the enemy.

Ryanair's relationship with the
consumer was very transactional.

I'm just providing you
a cheap way

to get from point A to point B.

Often through a maze.

For anyone who has
navigated the Ryanair website,

you probably have come
across some things

that would be qualified
as deceptive or dark patterns.

Practises that are
misleading to users.

It was a bit of
an obstacle course.

You could have to answer
70 different questions.

If you wanted to decline
adding insurance

as a cost to your flight,

to find that option, you had
to go to the dropdown menu

of the list of countries

and find 'do not insure me.'
These things aren't by accident,

they're by design.

You could end up with travel
insurance that you didn't want.

Ryanair coming in the cheapest,

you've got to weigh it up,
haven't you?

You know, take the risk or pay
that bit more money, I suppose.

So the flip side of low fares
seemed to be rubbish service.

The Trump Jet, bringing
the US billionaire

on his first trip to
Dunbeg Golf Resort.

There is still a road to be
travelled, the road of a lasting

and creative reconciliation.

By 2014, Ryanair faced a hard,
bitter truth to swallow.

It might need to start being nice.

I think there was a realisation
within Ryanair that you couldn't

keep pushing customers and keep
introducing new rules and keep

making the experience slightly
less pleasant every time

people flew, or eventually people
would stop flying with Ryanair.

I think the decision they made
at the time was people don't like

the brand as much, so
therefore we have to be nicer.

So here are the Johnsons.

Ryanair launched the
Always Getting Better campaign

as a response largely
to the backlash against

some of their PR stunts.

♪ Destination anywhere.

It did not overpromise.

It didn't say,
"We will ever be the best."

We were a little bit nicer.

At the time,
I seem to recall Michael O'Leary

being quoted as saying,
"Well, if I had known

being nice was good for revenues,

I would have done it sooner."

So as you can see,
always getting better.

In a funny way, that really
tells us so much more about

Michael O'Leary and his brand

than maybe the
outrageous behaviour.

It speaks to his pragmatism.

I would personally come up
to the boarding gate and kiss

your bum as well as you depart.

Instead of being aggressive
towards passengers,

they're now sort of generally
kind towards passengers.

That may be Michael maturing
as he gets, gets older.

I take personal responsibility
and I sincerely apologise.

Remember the trumpet noise?

(TRUMPET SOUND AFFECT)

Oh yeah, when you landed on time?

They stopped that now.
It worked.

Bookings have gone up since
Ryanair became a bit nicer.

It pays to be nice.

By 2017, Ryanair flew more people
across Europe than anyone else.

Well, I became non-executive
chairman of Aer Lingus in 2007.

Aer Lingus at the time
was in bad shape.

They were losing hundreds
of millions of euro.

They were also very influenced
by Ryanair and therefore wanted

to try and mimic Ryanair,
but having trade unions and

long-term work practises,
that just wasn't possible.

REPORTER: Michael O'Leary's
plan is to buy shares held

by workers for 60,000
on average each.

Aer Lingus had already fought
one takeover bid from Ryanair.

But smelling blood in the water,
Michael tried again.

He was always going to have
issues on competition

with both Irish airlines
from an island

being owned by one party.

Aer Lingus is too small and
too weak to survive

as an independent.

The whole idea, you argue
a case about opening up

and deregulate, and then you want
to take over and take a monopoly.

He was wrong on that.

REPORTER: It's all about the
consumer, said Neelie Kroes.

She had to ban Ryanair's
takeover of Aer Lingus

because the combined

airlines would have accounted
for 80% of passengers carried

into and out of Dublin Airport.

But he actually never bid enough
where the board had to say, well,

gosh, this actually is a good
thing for our shareholders.

REPORTER: So
what happens to the 25%

of Aer Lingus that Ryanair owns?

The Commission says Ryanair
can keep it because it's

not a controlling stake.

We in Ryanair realise that
it's part of our national duty

to try to preserve this relic
of this prehistoric dinosaur

for the sake of the Irish nation.

And we could make
a few quid doing it.

So I think he was possibly just
playing with us,

that he could afford
to splurge a little bit

of the shareholders' funds

to have this bit of a game of cat
and mouse with Aer Lingus.

Do you fly Ryanair?

I have.

I would not a lot,
being a nationalist.

I would still like
my national airline.

But I have flown Ryanair, yeah.

I like to see both
of them succeed.

Ah, Bertie, but sometimes
everyone just can't get along.

Ryanair's own staff have battled
with their CEO for years.

♪ Times are getting hard, boy.

♪ Money's getting scarce.

Dublin Airport has for many years
been a kind of trade

union la-la land.

Ryanair has always been
staunchly anti-union.

If you had to negotiate
every change with a union or

with workers' representatives,
that would slow things down.

The raison d'être of trade unions
is to increase pay,

terms and conditions, etc.

Ryanair said, we want to move
fast, we want to reduce costs,

we want to reduce labour costs.

Pilots were once aviation
superstars, enjoying a protected

status with prestige and clout.

Michael O'Leary is on record
at various points of, you know,

being quite disparaging
about pilots.

Pilots are glorified
taxi drivers.

It's a very complicated taxi,
and they are very skilled to be

able to do it,
but at the end of the day.

When Michael was
disparaging about the pilot job

and saying, you know,
that it was a bus driver,

the implications of getting it
wrong are a bit more serious.

As Ryanair want to do,
if you want to bring down prices,

then you got to cut costs.

And in aviation, of course,
a major cost is labour.

So bringing down pay and terms
and conditions of pilots

and other airline staff.

We weren't recognised formally
as a union because

the company was non-union.
CHANT: Ryanair must change!

Ryanair must change!

Staff and contractors were
subject to the whims of a

penny-pinching Michael.

The pilots just wanted
a fair deal,

a living salary that
was somewhere

in the ballpark of what
your peers were being paid

in other places.
Ryanair argued

it engaged in collective
bargaining, so didn't

need to talk to trade unions.
And the courts agreed.

So that was seen as
a big victory for Ryanair

because basically
they didn't have to deal with

the trade unions. And the
Supreme Court had basically said,

well, look, Ryanair is arguing
we have a system of negotiation,

and the Supreme Court
said maybe they do.

Michael O'Leary,
a tough negotiator,

as tough as they come.

Then in 2017, something
extraordinary happened.

I got a call from RTE,
can you do this 6:1 news?

Ryanair has just announced it's
going to recognise trade unions.

(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS)

Went into the studio.

What was your reaction when you
heard this surprise announcement?

When I realised it wasn't in fact
April 1st, I think like everybody

else, I was absolutely stunned.

Going to recognise unions?

A surprise.
Shows the company is progressive.

They've put them up
against the wall.

However, the miracle was not
from Michael's heart but his head.

A chronic pilot shortage had
forced Ryanair to cancel flights.

REPORTER: Ryanair says it
has already contacted

all the customers affected either
by text or by email.

So they're facing
mass cancellations.

I think at one point
Michael O'Leary said he'd cut his

arms off before he'd
negotiate with trade unions.

Overnight. An armless
Michael changed his mind.

We have very good pay,
very good conditions,

but we are in a
learning process.

We're learning how
to deal with the unions.

The way Ryanair operated
before unions

and the way Ryanair operates now,

it doesn't seem
to be that different.

You wonder what all the
kerfuffle was about,

why they didn't do it earlier.

Ryanair always was the scrappy
upstart fighting against

domestically Aer Lingus,
for example,

fighting against the traditional
flag carriers, trying

to establish itself.

But now it is the dominant player
in the commercial aviation

industry in Europe.

Ryanair found another tool in
its tool belt to fight its

cost-cutting corner.

Big businesses tend to use
the courts and the law

as a weapon.

For those of you interested,
it's been a very good

morning today for Ryanair.

Yeah, it's fair to say Ryanair
is fairly litigious,

he says,
shifting in his seat.

The company has litigated
against over-regulation,

against certain aspects of EU
regulation which it has seen as

kind of slowing down growth,
slowing down progress.

We can now show
Lufthansa's high fares

Ryanair's low fares in an ad
and give German people a choice.

But of course, it's fundamentally
what enabled Ryanair's success is

the opening up of the
European aviation market,

you know, which is a function of
the EU, the open skies and so on.

Ryanair will try save
costs any way it can.

That means they've taken
to court from time to time.

They'll do it, and if they lose,
they'll pay, and if they win,

they'll be happy as Larry.

They'll push everything
as far as they can.

Every now and then,
the courts have managed to put

some schmacht on Ryanair.

MAN: They had an advert that was
Europe's greenest airline.

Yes, it's true on an individual
flight basis, but then when you

take into account their total
emissions, they're actually

the biggest polluter.

That was challenged in court,
I believe, and they

had to remove that.

And that hidden "Do not insure me"
option, that went to court too.

And Ryanair ended up being fined
850,000 euro for that practise.

So they certainly push
to the limits what they can do.

As the natural world is pushed
to its limits, aviation has begun

to reckon with its
role in the disaster.

REPORTER: Dramatic climate
changes are taking place

worldwide,
and a little later

than the rest, Ireland is
beginning to feel the effects.

It's not bullshit
pie-in-the-sky stuff.

These aircraft burn 18% less
fuel, carry 4% more passengers.

You get a 20% reduction in fuel
consumption, CO2 emissions, and a

40% reduction in noise emissions.

Engines have gotten more
efficient, so that is helping,

but it's not solving the problem.

We're still going to be
causing a lot of emissions.

Sustainable aviation fuels,
like biofuels,

are not a simple solution.

Michael O'Leary has said himself
that there is not enough used

cooking oil in the world to power
one day of green aviation.

But we just don't
eat that many chips.

Hydrogen is very expensive
and requires a complete

redesign of aircraft.

It takes 10, 15 years to design
and develop an aircraft.

It takes another 15 years
to produce that aircraft.

Decisions we make today
influence 2050 already.

Transporting over 200 million
people a year,

Ryanair's total carbon emissions
tells the real cost of low cost.

If you look at the top
10 emitters in Europe,

they're all coal power stations,
and Ryanair is in there as well.

And so it's kind of,
it's been described as

the kind of the new coal.

Unless we phase out coal,
the airline industry will be

one of the biggest emitters.

But 2020 was not the time
to tackle this particular crisis.

We've taken extraordinary
measures here tonight because

these are frankly
extraordinary times.

I'm alone here right now,
no audience.

Strange, eerie feeling,
I won't lie to you.

Something else was happening
that kept us all busy.

What was it?
Oh yeah.

It was going to be a very,
very good year in 2020.

They were riding high, they
were very close to Lufthansa,

about 150 million
passengers a year.

REPORTER: Ryanair said its
passenger numbers for April, May,

and June will be 99.5%
behind forecast.

There were clear skies over
Dublin Airport today,

which should have been buzzing
ahead of the holiday weekend,

but instead aircraft were
grounded, the terminal empty.

Once again, global aviation was
brought to a grinding halt

by an unprecedented catastrophe.

MICHAEL: My view is it'll be soft
for the next couple of weeks,

And if it settles down
over Easter,

then people will begin to rapidly
focus on summer travel.

COVID, nobody'd ever
seen anything like it.

People were talking
about airline failures.

It lasted longer than
anyone in aviation thought.

We announced this morning we're
going to cut 50% of our staff.

That's, we think,
the minimum we need just

to survive the next 12 months.

He was very, very
determined that this was not

going to leave Ryanair
damaged in any way,

the way it left so many

other airlines across
Europe damaged.

Damaged and taking handouts.

This is Branson's second go
at trying to fleece the British

taxpayer for state aid.

Frankly, if he's worried
about Virgin,

he should write
the cheque himself.

I think the thing that has always
marked Ryanair out from its peers

and its competitors is Michael's
leadership, clarity of thinking,

determination, and frankly,
being able to make the right call

on the significant
majority of occasions.

Also doing the
counterintuitive thing.

While other airlines were
struggling, Ryanair

invested in 75 new 737s.

What Ryanair did that
was different

was they kept the aircraft

certified, and they kept
the pilots licenced.

He knew that his opposition,
other airlines, would be slower

to get out of the blocks.

It was hugely expensive.

Over a billion euro was lost.

It got back into gear because
basically it never

went out of gear.
They flew all their planes.

Because of clearer airspace,
they were able to fly them even

more punctually than
they had before.

And literally,
that changed the game.

Once again, when aviation
was knee-deep in sludge,

Ryanair's pragmatism fixed its
horizon on calm skies ahead.

The result was phenomenal.

Passenger numbers went up to
180 million and eventually 200

million in the post-COVID period.

Ryanair are flying at something
like 130% of the

pre-pandemic figure.

In July 2021,

I took on the role as head of
social media at Ryanair.

And I walk into the room,
and the first thing he said to me

was, "Who the fuck are you?"

And I went, "Well, I'm the person
that runs social media."

And he goes, "You're too old to
be working in social media."

Ryanair arguably were
geniuses at newsjacking.

The brand attached itself
to the story of the day.

Good evening.

The Conservative Party in the UK,
who are being a bit reckless

with their own rules
around COVID,

and they were having plenty
of parties in Downing Street.

Now is the time for us all
to summon the, the discipline

that will carry us through.

They issued this scale,
this 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of the COVID

guidelines for being in the UK.

Our team came back with a really
great remodel to scale side

by side, which was very bold
and very brash and really bad

language and
was really high risk.

A couple of days later,
the Financial Times wrote

an article,
"Brands need to be more Ryanair."

Michael O'Leary put
handwritten notes on them

and put on our desks,
"Keep up the good work,

signed by Michael."

That was like the papal smoke
coming up within the office.

Ryanair is a brand
made for social media.

Ryanair is competing against
not just every airline,

but every brand, influencers,

even our mum's
pictures on Facebook.

It was the millennials,
it was the privileged generation

just really hated Ryanair because
their expectations were so high

that they were expecting hot
towels, USB chargers, free Wi-Fi,

all for the price of 10 flights.

It just didn't make sense.

The job for Ryanair to do
was to change perceptions.

Knowing that we had this DNA
from Michael, from being,

like, really irreverent on things
in the world and self-deprecating

about the product, being
real about what the product

was, we got this notoriety
of being this,

for want of a better word,
a bastard brand on the internet.

We were grabbing their
attention and entertaining them.

There are very few brands,
I think,

where the chief executive is so

deeply intertwined with
the company's identity.

Failure was applauded
within the business.

Because it means
that you're taking

risks and you're being brave.

Despite his success at Ryanair,

Michael bowed out after
just over 2 years.

And exited in his style
to a flurry of headlines.

Ryanair became so big
and such a success that

it was a polarising brand,

not just by marketing
but by business terms.

It was ruthless and curious
and relentless and pushed

the boundaries of everything.

♪ DRAMATIC MUSIC ♪

BEHIND CAMERA: Can you remember the
first time you flew?

Oh...

I do remember my first time flying.

It was probably on a Viscount to
Paris, my first flight. Yes.

Rattling along.

A single engine contraption. Which
was a death trap, probably.

I first flew when I was 12.

And it was a very big treat.

And I do remember almost every
second of it.

The first view above the clouds.

It's magical.

I was very nervous when it came to
the take off.

Absolutely terrified. It was white
knuckles.

It was really exciting getting an
aeroplane.

I didn't even know anybody, I don't
think, who had been on an aeroplane,

other than my dad.

It was a huge, huge, huge thing for
me.

On a big plane going across the
Atlantic.

It was magic.

♪ SONG: Jo Blankenburg -
"Sentience (feat. Clara Sorace)" ♪

I think what I love about flying
is...

just...

...the freedom.

We get a unique and privileged
view of the Earth.

I love flying.

Everyone that I know loves flying.

We want to preserve the ability to
fly because it is so magical.

NARRATOR: Our freedom to fly comes
with a high price.

As temperatures rise,

aviation faces more tension than ever
before.

♪ SONG: Anita O'Day - "Let's Face
the Music and Dance" ♪

Climate collapse may be Michael's
greatest challenge yet.

O'LEARY: We do have to make travel
greener,

so we're doing everything we can.

Feeling the heat,

in 2021 Ryanair launched its
partnership

with Trinity College Dublin

with the Ryanair Sustainable Aviation
Research Centre.

You see behind me here the game
changer 737 MAX

that Ryanair is a customer of.

16 percent lower fuel burn percent
with 4 percent more passengers.

♪ Let's face the music and dance.

Delicious cake.

I wonder how sincere Michael
O'Leary's

apparent recent conversion to
environmental issues is.

♪ SONG: Frank Sinatra - "Bein'
Green" ♪

Their 4 million investment is mere
coins for a company

worth over 30 billion.

We need to go a lot further, a lot
faster.

I don't think Michael O'Leary's...

♪ It's not that easy bein' green

...dedication, shall we say.

Our belief in ESG is entirely
sincere.

It's a bit of a box-ticking
exercise.

It's something that he knows many of
his investors actually do.

But let's face it,

Michael O'Leary's ambition is to get
more and more people to fly.

Ryanair flies 630 planes

and is aiming to fly 300 million
passengers by 2034.

People want to continue to travel,

and there's no way of putting
that genie back in the bottle,

thankfully.

Despite more efficient planes,

their ever-expanding empire is
only increasing its emissions.

Which keeps Ryanair in the hot seat.

One thing is for sure,

is that there will continue to be
enhanced scrutiny

around any brand's perceived
green-washing.

For Michael, a call to action might
need more stick than carrot.

The bigger challenge facing Ryanair
when it comes to sustainability

is less the consumer and more
regulators

and what the regulatory framework
might impose on it.

So if Ryanair were to launch an
always getting greener campaign,

for example, they could certainly
expect scrutiny

and the need for greater
transparency.

The regulation is tightening

and tightening all of the time in
relation to climate

and climate change.

Ryanair's old foe, regulations,
looms towards them.

Regulators are thinking about the
common good.

Businesses are thinking about their
shareholders.

Michael O'Leary and Ryanair will be
sure that Ryanair

will be contributing to the increase
in numbers within Europe,

climate change or not.

Unless, and it's a big if,

the European Commission and member
governments of the European Union

decide that they're going to take
measures to limit

air travel to try and combat climate
change.

It's difficult for us,
particularly in Ireland,

because we're an island nation.

You remove aviation or reduce and
restrict that more and more,

we're probably going to regress as
an economy off the back of it.

Ireland would be a very different
place without Ryanair.

Cheap flights have changed how we
live.

Because we're this small damp rock
on the outskirts of Europe

and it's always raining and it's
always grey,

Irish people are just dying to get
off the rock.

And Michael O'Leary came along
and offered a way that

everybody could afford to do it.

When once we fled, we can now return.

So my original flight was actually
booked for tomorrow,

but I purposely changed the time
of the flight

so I could come home to vote.

This is a revolution that James
Connolly would have dreamed about.

Aviation was brought to ordinary
people, regardless of their income,

regardless of their age, regardless
of their status.

Ireland now is unrecognisable
compared

to where it was 40 years ago.

I don't think 40 years ago we had
the self-belief that we have now,

or the sense that we could
internationalise our business.

It's phenomenal, Ryanair.

It could have been anywhere.

I think the fact that we got it, you
know, the headquarters is here,

their taxes are here, I mean, that's
big.

That's big for Ireland.

Ryanair has brought us closer to
Europe.

The European Union made Ryanair.

Ryanair's influence in Europe is
totally profound.

They are truly a pan-European
operator.

O'LEARY: Ryanair has done more for
European integration, I think,

than any other company in the
history of the European Union.

We have made it possible for people
to travel all over Europe

all year round at fares that nobody
thought were imaginable.

Most of Ryanair's success is down to
Michael's leadership.

He turned it from an airline that
was loss-making

and would have probably gone under

to an airline that was able to

challenge all of the legacy
carriers

and essentially democratise
privatise air travel,

big financial deals with Boeing.

These are all things that hit
the Richter scale.

When our Taoiseach, Michal Martin,

went to the White House and said,

sitting across from Trump people
may not realise Ryanair,

one of our biggest airlines, for
example...

TRUMP: I'll trade. (CHUCKLES) I'll
trade.

...they buy more, the two of them
together buy more

Boeing aeroplanes than anybody else.

How many aeroplanes we buy from you?

Single biggest customer.

In the world for a little
country of 5.5, 6 million people.

It is the most extraordinary
commercial story in any country.

Okay, Ivan, he's not the Messiah.

He's a very clever businessman.

He revolutionised all that by really
having no respect

for anything other than the bottom
line.

For a nation that loves to champion

successes that punch above our
weight,

Ryanair rarely gets a boast.

Oh, I flew with Ryanair.

There's this automatic instant
reaction for us to tut

and roll our eyes like, "Fuckin'
Ryanair."

On paper, you know, he's
anti-establishment,

funny, he's direct, he doesn't like
politicians.

He should be sort of the Everyman,

and we should love him more than we
do.

The national sport in Ireland is
begrudgery.

Michael O'Leary and Ryanair

represents the Ireland that
hustles,

not the Ireland that hosts.

Can I say a cute whore? Yeah.

It is funny that we don't cherish
them more

because as a nation we do tend to
love a cute whore.

This cute whore has made Ryanair what
it is today.

O'LEARY: I'm proud of the fact that
it's Irish,

it's managed in Ireland,

it's run in Ireland.

I'm only guessing this, Michael
is scared shitless of retirement.

His energy and his experience
and his contacts

could be put to the benefit of
Ireland.

Having his mind focused on how do we
solve

one of the biggest crises in our
generation

would be very exciting in terms of
what's possible in aviation.

I think that would be a great legacy
for him to look back on.

Hmm, but that almost sounds like
do-gooding.

What about the bottom line?

Think of the shareholders!

I think that the next generation of
Michael O'Learys

will come out of innovation.

Innovation and technology and
research have

really become the passports to
people getting,

you know, filthy rich.

Ahh, thank goodness.

Ryanair has battled past crises

and competition to earn its place at
the top.

EasyJet talk the talk,

but they don't walk the walk.

But in aviation, the only certainty
is uncertainty.

Will low-cost continue to dominate
how we travel?

With each day bringing new and
strange battles...

If he wants to invest in Ryanair,

we would think it's certainly a
significantly better investment

than the financial returns he's
earning on X.

...and climate and geopolitics
collapsing,

perhaps no airline is more fighting
fit for the punches to come.

None of us know,

but I think it is time for Europe to
stand up to the US.

And if Trump wants to have a row
with Europe, well,

let's have a row right back.

♪ SONG: Cream - "I Feel Free" ♪

I am free.

Subtitling
RTÉ 2026.