Ryanair CEO O'Leary holds news conference in Dublin on his spat with Elon Musk – watch live

had implemented his government program and let some of his ministers do the overseas travel. And this is a brief snapshot of the last four months in our glorious leader's life. So in September he was handing over rugby balls in Canada. In November he was at the COP conference in Brazil. We have an environmental minister who could have done that. In November he was at the G20 in South Africa. The finance minister could have gone there. In November, he remarkably stopped off for a jobs summit in Angola where not one job has been created in Ireland as a result of his visit to Angola. And very defensive. Oh, I'm here representing the country. Nobody objects to me. Yeah, sorry. We do. We don't mind you on your overseas travel as long as you're implementing your government program at home. But the government program at home has not been implemented. 15, as I said, 13 months later, we still have the cap. And with a 20 seat majority, he still hasn't abolished it. And it continues. In January, he was off in China for four days with the Ferrero Rochers. And this week, where is he? He's dosing in Davos. Tonight, hosting a dinner for 80 people, top executives to focus on jobs. The most important thing Micheál Martin could do for jobs would be to abolish a cap at Dublin airport and let Ryanair and the other airlines get on with the job of growing traffic, growing tourism, and growing jobs in Ireland. But of course, that wouldn't involve him getting his photograph taken or nibbling on the Ferrero Rochers. We have a very exciting seven-year growth plan for Ireland, but it's only implementable if this government takes some action or uses its 20 seat majority. We believe we can grow traffic from 40 aircraft in 2025 and 23 million passengers to 60 aircraft and 35 million passengers over the next seven years. That would see dramatic growth at Dublin. Cork would grow from four to seven aircraft, Shannon from three to seven aircraft. We would open a new base in Knock, which is currently not a base, a two aircraft base in Knock. All we require is one, scrap the cap and allow Dublin to handle the 60 million passengers that it can handle with two runways. Freeze the Dublin airport already high Dublin airport fees at its existing 16.50 per departing passenger. That would still allow them to build the additional terminal facilities we need, but they would have to stop. Their current proposal is to waste nine billion building stupid things that airlines don't need at Dublin airport and much more importantly at EU focusing on the Draghi report. We need to bring ETS, which is the environmental taxation system in Europe, into line or a level playing field. We only tax European citizens traveling on intra-EU flights. We exempt Americans, Chinese, the Gulf carriers all coming to and from Europe. It is indefensible that we only tax our own citizens and exempt everybody else. The only way to fix that distortion is to bring ETS, environmental taxation, into line with CORSIA, which would result in lower fares for all EU citizens. And so in summary, as you know, we are Europe's number one airline. We have grown in Dublin. We're still growing in 2026, 125 routes and 18.7 million passengers in Dublin. The DAA are proposing to put charges up 10% despite record traffic and record profits. Micheál Martin has 13 months later still failed to scrap the Dublin airport cap, which he promised to do as soon as possible. We believe it's because he's too busy on his worldwide tour. He spends more time abroad than Elton John does. We want and can deliver 50% traffic growth by 2032. And it is imperative that this government acts quickly before flights get blocked in New York or god forbid Micheál Martin's March visit to the White House gets scrapped. We have in recent days as you'll have seen run into some controversy with the owner of X, Elon Musk. I don't quite know why he took such umbrage over it. We had a discussion about we have been in discussion with Starlink, his satellite system, for about over 12 months now. It is a very good system. We like the Starlink system. It is a terrific system. It works very well. The problem is if you put it on board aircraft, there is a cost of that of about 225 million a year including the cost of installation and then the fuel drag. You have to put not one but two aerials on top of the aircraft fuselage that will have a between 1 to 2% fuel drag. We spend about 5.5 billion a year on fuel and therefore it would increase our fuel bill by about 100 to 200 million. The Starlink people believe that 90% of our passengers would happily pay for Wi-Fi access. Our experience sadly tells us we think less than 10% of our passengers pay for this access and therefore we can't afford to shoulder costs of between 150 or 250 million a year. If Starlink wants to fit our aircraft and pay for the fuel drag, we'd happily put them on board. But the only way we see Starlink working on board our aircraft on short haul flights is if you give it away for free. And like most things in life, if you give it away for free, passengers will use it. If you want passengers to pay something modest like a euro 2 or $3 on our average one hour 15 minute flights, we think less than 10% I think and that's even optimistic. Probably less than 5% of passengers will take this up. I thought that was a reasonably measured response to why we're not using Starlink. Elon Musk apparently took great umbrage and resorted to insulting me on X at the weekend, calling me an idiot. I think yesterday he also rounded on me and called me a I think a chimp. All I would say to Elon Musk is he would have to join the back of a very very very long queue of people who already think I'm a chimp, including my four teenage children. But we do want to thank him. We've had I think over I think three or four million hits on this seat sale our IT team launched yesterday which is the big idiot seat sale. There's 100,000 seats available for sale at just €16.99 which just goes to show that Europe leads the world in low low airfares. There's no airfares like this in North America. And we're later on this morning going around to the X offices in Cumberland House to present or to give Elon Musk a free ticket. He doesn't even have to pay the 16.99, a free Ryanair ticket to thank him for the wonderful boost in publicity which has seen our bookings rise significantly. They're up about two or three percent in the last five days which given our volumes is a very significant boost. So thank you to Mr. Musk. I take no insult at all of being called an idiot or a chimp. As anybody with teenage children would know you're frequently called an idiot and a chimp at home. I don't need to go outside to be insulted. But he's wrong on the fuel drag. We noticed he was holding a poll about should he launch a bid for Ryanair. We're a publicly owned company. He's free to do so at any time. But non-European citizens cannot own a majority of European airlines. But if he wants to invest in Ryanair, we would think it's a very good investment, certainly a significantly better investment than the financial returns he's earning on at X. And we want to thank him sincerely for the additional publicity. Eddie, anything else you want to add in terms of the growth strategy for Ireland?

Your reflections on call. Have you also called me an idiot on a regular basis?

Sure. Okay. Any questions?

on some of the aircraft to see what happens and see what I mean. Look, there would clearly be a demand for Wi-Fi on board our aircraft if it was free. You know, other airlines, mainly long haul carriers like Aer Lingus, like Lufthansa and others are talking about installing Wi-Fi on board as a facility and giving it out for free. But their average fares, particularly on long haul, are over a thousand euros. Our average fares are 45. And we cannot afford that kind of to pay that 150 250 million cost to install Wi-Fi unless it can be paid for. We have had discussions with Starlink and other providers Amazon, Amazon and others. A lot of it has focused on you know how can we is there a way we can jointly put this on board. We'll trial it for you. We give you a platform with 200 and 300 million passengers across Europe but you pay for it. You sponsor it or can we get joint sponsorship? Like there's always ways of which you're looking at creative solutions that might overcome what is our fundamental issue with putting Wi-Fi on board and that's cost. We don't believe passengers will pay for it. But it would certainly be a welcome addition if we can in some way finance it and put it on board our aircraft for free. Yeah. And we've had many years of experience. You get on board our aircraft. Lots of people are there on one-hour flights, but they're on their laptop. They have Netflix and all this kind of stuff. We don't believe there's any significant demand on the basis that people would pay for it on a one hour flight. Sorry.

I think that's a very unfair characterization. I do think it's unfair on chimps. But you know, it is very good for our bookings. And you know, if we can prolong these kind of we love these PR spots that drive bookings on Ryanair. I'm sure it does wonders for Elon Musk and his X or whatever subscribers he has on X as well to be fighting with somebody. But, you know, as long as it doesn't involve safety and we've never compromised on safety. Any of these spats are great for bookings and great for awareness all over Europe. But he's putting humanity on Mars and you're saying he doesn't know anything about aerodynamics. Well, I mean that's pretty self-evident. You know, his claim is that there is no aerodynamic drag by putting a aerial on top of, you know, which comes as a great surprise to both Boeing and Airbus who have spent literally 100 years refining the aerodynamics of aircraft. I mean, we're fitting little winglets on the side of our, you know, scimitar winglets on the side of the wings of our aircraft at a cost of, you know, a couple hundred thousand, but they save about two or 3% to improve fuel efficiency. So tiny little amounts of improvements in fuel drag result in very significant fuel savings, but tiny impediments like aerials hanging off aircraft would add to costs. But we're very happy to continue the controversy. I welcome I think I welcome the accusation that I'm a chimp. I think it's somewhat unfair on the chimp community, but chimp chump as long as it increases Ryanair bookings through January, February, and March, it's all good fun and entertainment.

Look, I mean, I have very little time. I do believe social media X in particular is a cesspit. I'm not a member, don't never have subscribed, don't participate in it. But I find my personal objection to social media is anonymity. I mean we have numerous examples of you know people being Simon Harris's family being threatened anonymously on these things. You know you go through enormous I fail to understand why if you want to put something up on social media put up on your own name. And you know, I hear this nonsense defense. Oh, in Iran, you know, the go well, not in America, not in Europe. You've freedom of speech is protected in the US and in Europe. And I fundamentally disagree. I believe that governments should now legislate both in Europe and in the US to remove anonymity. Post away to your heart's content, but put it out under your own name. And if you want to slag off politicians or if you want to, you know, make false claims about safety, we had this originally earlier on back in the website days, you know, people were posting stuff on anonymous websites claiming that Ryanair was unsafe and, you know, he was a pilot of 23. We went through the Californian courts and found out eventually was some 17-year-old in Navan sitting in his PJs, you know, making up this stuff. So I would just remove anonymity and you know people have freedom of speech but you have to be responsible what you say and I fail to understand why you have things like X and not it's not the only social media which protects anonymity which gives all these keyboard warriors the right and I think the most recent controversy with Croc you know undressing children or undressing women is frankly offensive I don't understand why governments don't make it illegal that's nothing to do with freedom of speech women and children at the occasional I presume as well should be protected from not having your images nudified. There's enough porn out there for those who want to watch porn but you know I think it is a social media and you know things that enable nudification or pedophilia or you know child abuse and there's lots of cases of that should be outlawed but the easiest way to do is remove anonymity.

I don't think so. I mean firstly we were entirely vindicated. Both of them lost their seats at the subsequent election. I think the you know we are now living with the consequences of five years of green failure. Road transport. Dublin is the most congested city in Europe for five years with an aviation policy in Ireland that allegedly promotes growth in traffic, tourism, and jobs. We had a cap at Dublin airport. But I think the Irish electors have had their say and clearly agree with me. I'm not always right, but if somebody wants to have a pop at me, I'm all up for it. Shoot away. As I said, I have four teenage children, so there is nothing that Elon Musk can say to me that my teenage kids haven't already said to me. But if it results in a bit more PR for Ryanair or helps us to promote a world-leading seat sale during the dark months, weeks two, three, and four of January, it's great. We I'm more than welcome it, but I'm well able to take my own medicine. So, you know, welcome.

No. Firstly, we welcome all shareholders on our share register. Now obviously we have an obligation to have a majority to remain EU owned and controlled. So it would not be possible for Elon Musk even if he wants to to acquire Ryanair. But I would certainly encourage him to invest in Ryanair. I think it's one of the best airline investments. In fact, I think it's one of the best investments out there. What was the second part of the question? Sorry.

No, no, no. Look, we have had discussions with all of the Wi-Fi providers, you know, and the bigger ones, Amazon, Starlink, Vodafone, they're all excellent systems, you know, I don't have any issue, and I would say publicly, I think Starlink is a terrific system, but the economics of putting it on board short haul aircraft where we on our customer base don't believe they will pay for it are prohibitive. I mean, we tried this. There was a good example about 10 years ago when we put these inflight entertainment systems on board. You had these kind of you know we had the glorified PCs and we were renting them out and I thought this would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. We couldn't we wouldn't be able to keep them stocked. At the same time we put on lottery tickets which I thought was the greatest stupidity known to humankind. Nobody ever buy that rubbish. 10 year I think the onboard inflight entertainment systems lasted about two months and the lottery tickets are still going strong 10 years later. So you know we would always be happy to trial these things but you know when you start and it's not something that it's not like you know we can roll these out on board and put them on the trolleys on board the aircraft for us to refit these aircraft we take the aircraft out of service to refit aerials on them. This is a huge you take the aircraft out of service. It's a huge capital expenditure to fit this technology onto the aircraft. And then you have a fuel drag going forward. And if the trial doesn't work, you then take the aircraft out of service. You have to deal. This is not simple. You know, if you start playing around or drilling holes in aircraft fuselages that it is very expensive. It is technically difficult and if it results in a fuel drag, it is something we would never go near. But we are very happy and we continue to have discussions with Starlink with Amazon with Vodafone about the possibility of doing it but only in a way where it will lower our costs and those discussions will continue. So we would not rule it out at any stage.

No as you know because we have third quarter results on Monday. We're in a closed period. Can't say anything about results or guidance or anything else. It'll all be dealt with on Monday when hopefully our seat sale with Elon Musk will have successfully concluded and this controversy will have blown over. Yes, sir.

No, sorry. I said all social media in my view is a cesspit. I wouldn't confine it just to X. There's worse than X out there. Am I happy for Ryanair to be on these? Yes, I am. You know, we have to be out there. We whether it's on Facebook or Instagram or God help us, we're on TikTok. We have one of the biggest corporate accounts on TikTok, which I think personally is the greatest amount of rubbish I've ever seen. I don't see much of it. Talking airplanes. Jesus, is this what the world is coming to? But if that's where you can reach the younger generation, that's fine. But on all of these sites, we post on Ryanair. We post under our own name. When we say something wrong, we're responsible for it. What I think should be stopped and what governments should tackle both at European and US level is remove the anonymity. So I have no difficulty with social media as long as everybody's posting on their own names. But I think it's fundamentally wrong that people are out there with all the various scandals whether it's nudification or child pornography or suicidal suicide incitement whatever that is do it under your own name and fine then at least you're maintaining and protecting freedom of speech but stop this thing where keyboard warriors can use anonymity to issue death threats at politicians like nobody deserves that kind of stuff. Female celebrities who are nudified on these things. They don't deserve that and we need to have a bit more common sense to say when governments seem to be frozen. Now, I'm not surprised our government is frozen because Micheál Martin is useless anyway. You know, with a 20 seat majority 15 months later, he still hasn't scrapped a stupid cap that he's completely ignored already. And but you know, we need to be much tougher. And he's out there in Davos today passing around the Ferrero Rochers with representatives from X and all the other American social media companies. He needs to carry a big stick and do something. Europe should be doing something about removing anonymity from social media and trying to tidy that crap up.

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 think 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 X 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 or a chimp. 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.

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 with them. But that doesn't mean that Ursula von der Leyen 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. RTÉ would come on at about 6:00 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. Australia banning it for under 16s is wasting your time. You may as well be I can't remember what it was. King Canute 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 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.

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 or the baggage hold like it will 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. I mean even if you look at the long haul airlines, the Lufthansas and the Aer Lingus, they make a big song and dance but you know it's free Wi-Fi access. Now I've traveled on a linking 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 have a cost penalty for us. And two, we can together with our partners 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 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 right here.

That's why I called.

No, I mean already before we started that in November, we had about 80% of passengers checking on smartphones. That number is now up to about 98, 99%. And I hated 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 super really intelligent question.

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. 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, 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 what 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 and 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.

Um yeah, 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 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, 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, Micheal, and it's in the program for government, we will scrap this cap quote as soon as possible, 13 months ago, you know with a 20 seat majority and it's not like they've 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 o'clock on a Tuesday and then disappears to Davos for a couple of days.

There are very few things on which I could be truly certain about. But 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, book your short haul holidays to Europe in June and July because don't worry Ireland won't be in the World Cup.

But I think it is time for Europe to stand up to the US. I think you know if Trump threatens Europe with tariffs, Europe should respond in like measure. And Trump will chicken out. He generally does. You know Europe is a big wealthy economy with the second largest trading block in the world after the US economy and we need Europe needs to get its act together. How do I think it would affect our business? Who knows? And I certainly don't know. But I don't think a trade war would last very long given the amount of American business that are based here in Europe. Given the amount that Europe imports from America and vice versa. But you know, we have to have a more belligerent foreign policy towards certainly the Trump administration. And we would hope that eventually common sense will prevail. I mean, I think if you look at Trump, he is at the end of the day interested in doing business. He certainly has midterm elections coming in November. He certainly wants the US economy to be doing well and I don't think Trump eight months out from midterm elections can afford to have a trade war with Europe. But you know it is absolutely imperative. I mean you know we have all grown up in the 80 years post the second world war where thanks to NATO and certainly thanks to free trade the world is a much wealthier place. And you know we should continue that. And you know as a big importer of American aircraft, we are the largest investor in American aircraft outside of North America, we own a fleet of 630 Boeing aircraft, we've ordered another 300, they make great aircraft. I am a huge supporter of America, it has done wonders for free trade, it has done wonders for promotion of democracy and these things will pass. But, you know, Europe does need to get its act together. And if Trump wants to have a row with Europe, well, let's have a row back.