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IT’S DEJA VU all over again in the business world. Stop us if you’ve heard this before:
Michael O’Leary had a cut off Aer Lingus, the Government, and the bumbling bureaucracy that frustrates his every move. The IFSC was sniffing around for scraps at the table of international finance. Newspaper sales continued to decline.
That said, the devil is in the detail, so read on to find out just what happened this week.
Need to know
Ryanair steps up its campaign
Michael O’Leary was in flying form in front of assorted hacks in Dublin this week, where he announced new routes to Brussels. The Westmeath man is explicitly going after the Aer Lingus dominated route, claiming that he wants to win over 60% of the (primarily business) traffic to Brussels’ main airport.
Analysts endorsed the O’Leary strategy, although David Holohan from Merrion Capital pointed out that the airline could be a bit late to the party, with other budget carriers having moved into business travel first.
Either way, O’Leary wasn’t pulling his punches in a lively press conference. Unfortunately, we can’t always accommodate his liveliest quotes in the news, so here’s a selection that didn’t make the cut:
On his attempts to buy Aer Lingus:
We made a couple of attempts to buy a small Irish regional airline…but they’d prefer to get smaller.
On the Aer Lingus pension dispute:
It is a scandal that would only take place in a Government-controlled, failing airline…you have Brother (ICTU General Secretary David) Begg sitting on the board like the dead hand of the trade union…they threaten the occasional strike and the Government and the bureaucrats at the Department of Transport fall over themselves to make concessions.
On Albert Reynolds
We were certainly very proud of him and history will be very kind to him. In a short period he achieved a lot…setting Ireland on course for a relatively rapid period of economic growth.
…and on Bertie Ahern
If you could have visionary, dynamic and bold leadership like Albert Reynolds, or the 10 years of dither and fudge and buying off the public sector and other stakeholders like Bertie Ahern…people would have him back in a flash
Get off the fence, Michael.
And while he was here, he even found time to take the ice bucket challenge
Our daily Brexit
Time was when Irish affairs were more frequent feature in the hallowed pages of the Financial Times – first positive, then overwhelmingly negative.
Despite the relative becalming of our economy at the moment, the pink paper still found space for a hefty report painting Dublin as the bogey-man of the international financial sector headquartered in London.
If the UK were to become a little bit less united through Scottish independence, and a little bit more isolated from Europe, several anonymous financial executives told the FT that they’d be upping sticks and moving to our Fair City.
We understand that there have indeed been overtures from officials to London players in the IFSC here, although sources cautioned that nothing was imminent and said that there is some way to go before we should expect to see the Goldman Sachs of this world on the Liffeyside.
Nice to know
Now you know
One for the road
This ship, operated by the Maersk cargo company, has set a new record for the most containers ever carried on a vessel. Impressive.
Maersk Line / Vimeo
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Its a good job they didn’t let O’Leary take over Air Lingus , imagine with Ryan Air now losing millions a year and constant staff cuts and wages being slashed what the superbly ran and profitable Air Lingus would be like
Bad boy. I spilled my coffee laughing.
O’Leary has the most punchable head ever created
Why – would you prefer to pay £250 to fly to London like we used to in the 80s?
Excuse my ignorance, but what’s a “brexit”?
Brian I think its what the heads from sheriff street call coen flakes
Oh, I get it. It’s one of those silly, lazy words invented by the likes of The Sun/Daily Mail for impact. “British exit” from the EU. Modern journalism: let’s push an agenda rather than report on facts. Sigh!
O mick will grow up you should have left the school play ground a long time ago.Aer lingus is a private company making profits compared to other airlines,no their not as big as you with hundreds of aircraft aerlingus operate 45 ish aircraft ,breaking that down they are quite successful in their own right carrying close to 10 million passengers.Its an irish company that is generating Much needed cash for the revenue .I am tired looking at your face on every broad sheet and internet.You are successful thats true ,but so would anyone who have people working for them coming up with strange ideas and no one can question it gets done with no resistance .I will never fly your airline ,i will never fly business class i use aerlingus they tick all the boxes for me .I dont shop is the same supermarket all the time i like choose were i go ,i would not like one dictator telling me what way i should fly,so go count some cows
That was the best bucket shower I’ve seen so far! And, I’ve seen too many!
Insufferably,the idea has past it’s time.Cringing here uncontrollably, every time a new bucket challenge comes up.
But credit to Mr O’Leary- I’m usually as cynical about him as the next person -that was genuine, and good sport of him.
Nice Lollies Molly;although I think a little time in the gym might help in other areas. ;)
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