LIVE: Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary Responds to Elon Musk at Dublin Press Conference

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 169, a free Ryanair 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 5 days, which given our volumes is a very significant boost. So thank you to Mr. Musk. I take no insult at all at being called an idiot or a chump. As anybody with teenage children would know, you're frequently called an idiot and a chump 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?

Or your reflections on call.

Sure. Okay. Any questions?

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. Their average fares, particularly on long-haul, are over €1,000. 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 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. Right. 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 aerials 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%. They improve weight. 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 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 it up under your own name. And you know, I hear this nonsense defense, oh, in Iran, you know, the government, well not in America, not in Europe, your 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, I mean, 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 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 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 Grok, 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, and the occasional man 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 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 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 5 years with an aviation policy in Ireland that, you know, 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 2, 3, and 4 of January, it's great. We, 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 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, Bairbre? 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 be well to 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 prohibited. I mean we tried this, there was a good example about 10 years ago when we put these inflight entertainment systems on board, your, 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. They would, you know, 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 years, I think the onboard inflight entertainment systems lasted about 2 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, like this is not simple. You know, if you start playing around or drilling holes in aircraft fuselages, that 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.

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. No. 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 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 and 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 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 deviation, 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. 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. 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 have 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 chump. 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. To despair for humanity. Michael.

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 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, 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. 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 3 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.

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 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 would clean up a lot of the crap on social media.

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 hold. Like, technology will ultimately get there. We live in a hyper-connected 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, you know, 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 have, 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, 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.

We hope you flew Ryanair.

That's why I arrived at quarter to 10.

Sorry. Cancel his return flight, will you?