FULL PRESSER: Michael O’Leary on Starlink Costs, Musk Insults, and Ryanair Booking Surge | AC1B

or 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 whose world tour continues while he fails to get anything done at home. We don't object to our Taoiseach 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. 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 dossing in Davos. Tonight they're 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 the 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 to waste €9 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 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 Aer Lingus 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 euro, two or three dollars 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... All I would say to Elon Musk is he would have to join the back of a very, 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 3 or 4 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 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 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 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?

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. But 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, Vodafone 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.

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.

Well, I mean that's pretty self-evident. You know, his claim is that there is no aerodynamic drag by putting a satellite 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, on 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 burn. 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 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. You've, you know, 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 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 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 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 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.

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, week 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.

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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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.

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 the weather is settled and this country will have blown over. Yes, sir.