There's a real likelihood under the Trump administration that Ryanair flights would be blocked landing in New York. Micheál Martin will be blocked from visiting the White House in March, and then you will see the cap abolished within 24 hours because it'll be a national emergency when Micheál Martin's overseas travels are constrained.
Good news in Ireland. We're still growing strongly this year in 2026. Again, thanks to the injunction we have against the cap, we're still growing our traffic. We have 42 aircraft in Ireland, two new aircraft, 214 routes. We expect traffic in Ireland to be about 25.5 million passengers this year, including a fourth aircraft and four new routes to Shannon.
In Dublin, we're growing strongly. Traffic up last year by 4% at 18.7 million. But Dublin is a real challenge for us and for the other airlines. This illegal cap is blocking growth. The US airlines are not willing to commit to long-haul routes or to putting more routes in there until the uncertainty of the cap is removed.
We as a short-haul airline can continue to grow because we can, you know, if the cap is reimposed, we can flip those aircraft out of Dublin reasonably quickly. And it's time for this do-nothing government to act. As I said, we have a do-nothing government, Micheál, a do-nothing Taoiseach.
Try parading the world, eating the Ferrero Rochers. But we would prefer if he actually stayed at home and 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. 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 dossing 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 the 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 Dublin airport's already high 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, which is to waste nine billion building stupid things that airlines don't need at Dublin airport.
And much more importantly at EU level, focusing on the Draghi report, we need to bring ETS, which is the environmental taxation system in Europe, into line for 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 will 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 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 €220-250 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 €2 or $3 on our average 1 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—
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 an idiot, including my four teenage children. But we do want to thank him. We've had, I think, over 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 €69—a free ride ticket to thank him for the wonderful boost in publicity which has seen our bookings rise significantly. They're up about 2 or 3% 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—as anybody with teenage children would know, you're frequently called an idiot and a—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 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?
Well, I mean that's pretty self-evident. You know, his claim is that there is no aerodynamic drag by putting a—on top of—which comes as a great surprise to both Boeing and Airbus who have spent literally hundreds of years refining the aerodynamics of aircraft. I mean we're fitting little winglets on the side of our—scimitar winglets on the side of the wings of our aircraft at a cost of a couple hundred thousand but they save about two or 3%—they improve. 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 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 it up under your own name. And you know, I hear this nonsense defense: oh, in Iran, you know, the—well, not in America, not in Europe. 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 at 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 at 23. We went through the Californian courts and found out eventually it 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 for what you say. And I fail to understand why you have things like X—and 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 deepfakes, 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 having your images nudified.
There's enough porn out there for those who want to watch porn. But you know, I think it is social media and things that enable nudification or pedophilia or child abuse—and there's lots of cases of that—should be outlawed. But the easiest way to do it is remove anonymity.
Yes.
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 of week two, three and four of January, it's great. I more than welcome it.
But I'm well able to take my own medicine. So, you know—
No. Firstly, we welcome all shareholders on our share register. Now obviously we have an obligation to remain EU-owned and controlled. So it would not be possible for Elon Musk even if he wanted 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.
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 be well to say publicly, I think Starlink is a terrific system. But the economics of putting it on board 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—these kind of glorified PCs—and we were renting them out. And I thought this would be the greatest thing since sliced bread, 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 would ever buy that rubbish. 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 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 and drilling holes in aircraft fuselages, 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 are continuing 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.
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 country 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. Whether it's on Facebook or Instagram or—God help—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. If 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 under 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 suicide baiting, 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—cutting to 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.
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, right? 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 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—but if it helps to boost Ryanair sales, you can insult me all day every day. And Eddie Wilson as well, who's 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 crowing about its successes. And 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 of 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 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 six o'clock, one station, black and white, and we'd watch Wanderly Wagon and a few other programs and my parents, grandparents, your foreheads would be fried: oh, you're watching too much television. You know, now you're 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 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—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 would clean up a lot of the crap on—
I look, technology will ultimately crack this thing. I'm sure we 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, in the front or the rear galley or something or the baggage. 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 Airings 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, you use lots of places where you go to hotels or you're going through places where, you know, you can 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.
