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Michael O'Leary (businessman)

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For other people named Michael O'Leary, see Michael O'Leary (disambiguation).

Michael O'Leary (born 1961) is chief executive of the low-cost airline Ryanair. He is the eldest of a family of six and was educated at Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare and Trinity College but did not graduate. He worked as a tax consultant with KPMG before becoming financial advisor to Tony Ryan. He was Deputy Chief Executive of Ryanair between 1991 and 1994.

In January 1994 he was promoted to chief executive of Ryanair and operates a Wal-Mart strategy: 'pile it high and sell it cheap.' Under O'Leary's management, what had been an ailing regional carrier bordering on bankruptcy has been transformed into one of the world's most profitable airlines by further developing the low-cost model originated by Southwest Airlines. He was the Fortune European Businessman of the Year for 2001.

O'Leary has a somewhat fiery reputation among both his peers in the airline industry and with his employees. His no-nonsense management style, and his deliberate targeting and scathing criticisms of competitors, airport authorities, governments, unions, and groups of staff have now become a hallmark.

In 2004 he purchased a hackney plate for his Mercedes-Benz to enable it to be classified as a taxi so that he could legally make use of Dublin's bus lanes to speed his car journeys around the city.

The deregulation of Ireland's major airports (beginning with the dissolution of Aer Rianta, Ireland's principal airport authority, which finally occurred in 2004), and the shake-up of traditional full-service airlines are among his most well known high profile demands. O'Leary announced in late 2005 that he intends to stand down from the Ryanair helm in 2008.

He is one of Ireland's wealthiest men, with an estimated fortune of over €300 million. Ryanair started in 1985 with 51 people and two aircraft. It carried 5,000 passengers between Britain and Ireland. It is now Europe's most profitable carrier, with 2,600 staff, over 90 aircraft; 233 routes throughout Europe.

O'Leary Expressions

  • "For years flying has been the preserve of rich fuckers. Now everyone can afford to fly."
  • "Screw the travel agents. Take the fuckers out and shoot them. What have they done for passengers over the years?"
  • On refunds "we don't fall over ourselves if they say my granny fell ill. What part of no-refund do you not understand? You are not getting a refund so fuck off"
  • On Lufthansa: "[Lufthansa CEO Juergen] Weber says Germans don't like low fares. How the fuck does he know? The Germans will crawl bollock-naked over broken glass to get them"
  • On rivalry with British Airways: "There's too much 'we really admire our competitors'. All bollocks. Everyone wants to kick the shit out of everyone else. We want to beat the crap out of BA. They mean to kick the crap out of us."
  • On the Polish market: "Who wants to go to Gdansk? There ain't a lot there after you've seen the shipyard wall."[1]
  • Being happy: "They don't call us the fighting Irish for nothing. We have always been the travel innovators of Europe. We've built the roads and laid the railways. Now its the airlines!"
  • His ultimate goal: "Free tickets. In a decade or so, airlines will pay travellers to distribute people around Europe. The airline industry is like Tesco, Ikea, or network television where viewers watch for nothing and advertisers pay for access to them. Web companies earn money when they deliver click traffic to other sites."

Personal life

O'Leary lives in Gigginstown House near Mullingar. He married Anita Farrell in 2004 and their first child, Matthew, was born in September 2005. He breeds horses at his Gigginstown Stud in County Westmeath and in 2006, his horse War of Attrition trained by Michael 'Mouse' Morris at Fethard, County Tipperary, and ridden by Conor O'Dwyer won the Cheltenham Gold Cup which is the blue riband of steeplechasing.

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