Ryanair

"The idea appears to have been planted in his mind by Tony Ryan, who operated Ryanair, a highly successful though controversial discount airline based in Ireland. While Ryanair represented Ryan’s highest-profile investment, his cash cow was Guinness Peat Aviation, the world’s largest commeré¢ial aircraft leasing firm. Ryan, a former Aer Lingus executive, created GPa with support from the Irish national airline and the Guinness Peat Group, a London-based financial services company. GPa dealt with fixed-wing aircraft exclusively. In 1990, when Dobbin and Ryan began discussions for a joint venture, GPA placed a $17 billion order to purchase 700 new aircraft over the following ten years, an astonishing commitment."

"Michael O’Leary, CEO of the Irish airline Ryanair, once described his ideal customer as ‘someone with a pulse and a credit card’ and in the same ‘Lunch with the Financial Times’ interview referred to the British Airports Authority as the ‘Evil Empire’ and the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority as a bunch of ‘cretins and twerps’. While nobody can question Ryanair’s incredible financial success (last time I checked the low-cost carrier had built a market cap of over $13 billion), being voted Europe’s ‘least liked’ airline by TripAdvisor subscribers is something that would not sit well with me no matter how good the bottom line looks."