I have no direct contact with Elon Musk. I am not, as you will know, on X. I don't think I have any way of reaching him. I have no reason to be in contact with Elon Musk. What's his motivation? I like he rants and raves on X. I think it's good for him promoting X and his own views on X. And we're very happy to respond in kind on the Ryanair platform. And if he wants to call me an idiot, you know, he wouldn't be the first and he certainly won't be the last to call me an idiot. But if it helps to boost Ryanair sales, you can insult me all day every day and Eddie Wilson as well who's you know readily insultable too although somewhat younger and more attractive than me.
Do you despair for humanity, Michael?
No, I am optimistic for humanity, John. We are bringing low fare air travel to many more millions of European citizens in the next eight years. Instead of carrying 200 million passengers a year, we'll be carrying 300 million passengers a year, which is one of the great successes of the single market and European Union. You know, Europe spends far too much time pulling wool out of its own navel instead of, you know, crowing about its successes. And with the single market in Europe and the deregulation of airlines has been one of the stellar success stories of the European Union. In America today, you know, the cheapest airfares are north of $100. We originally started by copying the formula Southwest Airlines who had $10 airfares. Last year their average airfare was about $130. Last year Ryanair's average airfare was $45. We wiped the floor with American in terms of competitiveness with American air travel. Now America has a lead in AI. America has a lead in it. But when it comes to air travel, Europe wipes the floor. But that doesn't mean that Ursula von der Leyen, you know, shouldn't be doing something on reforming ATC, a level playing field on environmental taxation as the Draghi report highlighted there is much to be done, but she's not much use either. So we will continue to campaign for further reform. But no, I look forward with nothing but enthusiasm for humanity and the human race if we could just move the kids a little bit more off social media, but they will adapt to that. I remember when I was young here in the late 60s, early 70s and we used to watch I think about three hours of television in the evening. All TV would come on about six o'clock one station black and white and we'd watch Wanderly Wagon and a few other programs and the kids my parents grandparents thought your fried heads would be fried. Oh, you're watching too much television. You know, now you have 24-hour television and the kids are on wall-to-wall social media. I think anybody trying to ban social media to under 16s is wasting your time. You may as well be I can't remember what it was king to trying to stop the tide coming in. You know 16-year-old kids 14-year-old kids will wind their way around a ban faster than Ryanair seats are selling out today on today's seat sale. You know the politicians in their 40s and 50s imposing bans on under 16 year olds will be in relation to phone access or social media will be hopelessly ineffective. I do believe however that one of the ways in rather than trying to ban something, if you really want to ban something, ban anonymity on social media, force people and all of the internet companies know who's posting, but they should be posting under whatever it is their own name or their own account names and it will clean up a lot of the crap on social media.
Yes, Conor. Sorry. Come back to Conor eventually.
Look, technology will ultimately crack this thing. I'm sure we'll get to a 6G and an 8G and a 10G eventually. And I, you know, I have no doubt that instead of putting aerials on the external of the fuselage, we'll be able to fit an aerial in the internal of the I don't know the in the front or the rear galley or something of the baggage hold. Technology will ultimately get there. We live in a hyperconnected world and people will ultimately have free access to Wi-Fi on board short haul aircraft. So I have no doubt the technology will get there which is why we continue to be in dialogue with Amazon with Starlink with Vodafone on this. It will come but we cannot see a way at the moment where the model anybody will pay for it. I mean even if you look at the long haul airlines the Lufthansas and the Aer Lingus big song and dance but you know it's free Wi-Fi access now. I've traveled on Aer Lingus across the Atlantic and the Wi-Fi access isn't great at the moment anyway so even if it was free I'm not sure it would be dramatically improved but it's coming and the technology will keep improving. We're waiting until one we can get it sponsored or guaranteed that it doesn't or that it becomes some sort of you know that it doesn't have a cost penalty for us and two we can that we can we and together our partners can give it away for free and then I think people will genuinely use it. I mean, you know, use lots of places where you go to hotels or you're going through places where, you know, you could have free Wi-Fi access, but they want your email address. You maybe you do something like that and that gets more people on board with their internet address. And there's lots of ways, but I think ultimately the technology and the commercial agreements will result in free Wi-Fi on board short haul aircraft as well. Simon, you're very welcome to Dublin.
We hope you flew Ryanair here.
Do you think inadvertently that Ryanair might be fueling smartphone addiction because it's now three months since you said you've got to check in with your smartphone. And how's that going?
No, I mean already before we started that in November, we had about 80% of passengers checking in on smartphones. That number is now up to about 98 99%. And I'm hating that the other 1.5% are getting their paper we're printing the paper boarding pass for them free of charge at the airports as long as they've checked in online. But no, are we fueling smartphone addictions? I don't think so. Ours are transactional. If people are traveling with us, it's all done online. And you know, we think that is the way of the future. But thank you for flying all the way to Dublin to ask that really intelligent question.
Would you purchase a Tesla for you to purchase a Tesla?
No, absolutely not. I live in Mullingar 50 miles from Dublin. And my favorite mode of transport is a Landini tractor. So they don't we're not at an electrification stage yet. Eddie, I think is the proud owner of a Tesla.
Oh, yeah. Not an Oh, there's no support for Elon Musk and his social media website or his electric cars here.
I've never had a meeting. I don't think we've ever had a meeting with X. I mean, we have meetings with Starlink on fitting the aircraft with Wi-Fi, but we've no reason to meet with X. I mean, we I someone said Ryanair does have an X account, but no, I think we are sending around to the X Dublin offices this morning a free ticket for Elon Musk as part of our big idiot seat sale. And I would hope that we I've included myself and him in this big idiot seat sale. I suspect he's a bigger idiot than me, but nevertheless, he probably thinks I'm a bigger idiot than him. No, I'm an airline to run. We are hand delivering the free ticket around there. It'll be I'm sure there'll be something posted on our social media accounts later on today.
You know, I don't know the detail of it and I'm not in a position to comment really. All I would say is, you know, it seems clear that Kenny's error appears to be that he's upset some people in Fingal County Council and some bureaucrats in the Department of Transport. And I think every one of us on a daily basis should get up and say that the first thing we will do today is to upset county people working for county councils and certainly useless bureaucrats in the Department of Transport. I imagine that the you know if he is replaced the job description for the next leader of Dublin airport will be please don't upset Fingal County Council or they might write to the Department of Transport and complain about you. I mean we have much bigger issues to face. I don't think he's done a particularly good job at Dublin airport. You know he championed this ludicrous tunnel 220 million a tunnel under the taxiway out to nowhere. It's a tunnel to take people out to where the cargo aircraft are. Now the parcels don't need tunnels you know they can drive around the outside of the aircraft but it is more of the kind of gold plating they want to waste this kind of money so the regulator will give them more further increases in fees and we live on an island in the periphery of Europe. It is vital that Ireland continues to provide efficient facilities and low fare access on and off this island now that we finally got rid of the green lunatics. You know the idea that we're all going to be cycling to Brussels or you know like some of the famous green MEPs getting trains to the UK and boats to we don't have time. Green MEPs may have three days to waste getting to Brussels but the rest of the world doesn't. So I think this situation is I regret the situation he personally finds himself in. I think it's a bit of a mess. But it seems to be a mess that is caused by criticizing those in Fingal County Council, you know, who are presiding over this stupid and illegal cap. And I think the much greater danger for Ireland is that, you know, if he airing flights could well be blocked from landing in New York. Martin might well be blocked from going to the White House in March and then you'll see this legislation passed within 24 hours. But for 13 months, Micheál and it's in the program for government. we will rescind this cap quote as soon as possible 13 months ago you know with a 20 seat majority and it's not like they've done been busy passing other legislation last year. This government does very little but it's led by somebody who spends far too much time being wheeled around abroad meeting global leaders instead of which would be fine as long as you were having a cabinet meeting here at 8:30 on a Monday morning and getting stuff done. He wanders in at about 11:00 on a Tuesday and then disappears to Davos for a couple of days.
There are very few things on which I can be truly certain about. One, we won't be putting on flights to the US. And two, I'm fairly sure Ireland won't qualify for the World Cup anyway, which is why I urge everybody keep booking this every booking your short hauls to Europe in June and July because don't worry, Ireland won't be in the World Cup.
