Folks, the world’s richest man and the airline industry’s richest man are arguing like little children, and they’re both wrong…
Continue reading: Elon Musk Threatens To Buy Ryanair, Demands CEO Michael O’Leary Be Fired
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Which is worst -- two conceited billionaires, or someone who writes "one of the only people in the world" ?
The entire world is being turned into a toxic schoolyard for the ultra wealthy 2%. Meanwhile the rest of us are forced to run for cover wherever we can.
Musk buying Ryanair is not working legally as you have to be a citizen of the country where the airline is holding its operating licence if you want to own a more than 50% share of an airline , in some countries even less. So Musk would have to part with his US citizenship…
Elon Musk behaves as if he owns the world. He may buy one of the US big 3 airlines if he wants to run an airline. Or he may launch his own "Tesla Airlines" and make it the biggest airline in USA. Ryanair doesn't need him.
Please Elton, do buy Ryanair and sack the O’Leary. If he needs an extra bob-or-two, I am more than willing to raid my piggy bank …. 🙂
So a glorified bus company owner is gonna tell a guy who builds rocket ships that he's an idiot that knows nothing about drag? O'Leary may know his eurotrash customers, but that's about it. As a mechanical engineer I'm 100% certain starlink knows exactly what the drag and fuel burn are on just about every major airframe. If Elon says it's about 0.2% increased fuel burn then I'll believe it.
It's safe to say that Starlink wouldn't sell to them now even if they begged for it. At some point when they are the only carrier that doesn't have internet access, they will indeed lose customers.
Musk is a fascist c. If Ryanair doesn’t want to buy a product that’s their decision.
I doubt they will lose customers.
And regardless of what technical knowledge O’Leary has or doesn’t have, this is just Musk being butthurt about a company publicly rejecting getting Starlink. How dare they!
Not everyone who flies FR is trash. They have a successful business model. You don’t select an airline entirely on the basis of Internet access. Most flights are short and they carry 200 million pax annually. If you’re a mechanical engineer or probably a glorified name for a plumber, you clearly have don’t any knowledge about running an airline.
Honestly, very few people choose a flight based on the airline itself. On most routes, there’s little real competition anyway with the same schedule. And when there is, Ryanair doesn’t offer the best experience, nor do they pretend to. They compete on price, and very often, they win.
On top of that, you usually still have mobile internet for about five minutes after takeoff and again around fifteen minutes before landing. That means on most Ryanair flights, you’re offline for barely 30 minutes.
But Nasir, EM already has an ‘airline’. The fact that it only goes up or down, is of little consequence. The seat cost per mile must be enormous.
I thought that Elon was intentionally satirising as a wannabe Bond Villain. No longer do I believe that it is an act, he is an eccentric idiot.
@Icarus
You know even less about both subjects, so why are you even commenting with a lame argument by authority fallacy? Careful, you're flying too close to the sun again.
Oh now I get it, you're one of those people who thinks everyone who isn't a left wing psychopath is a fascist. I can safely ignore everything you write now.
No, they could have not bought the produc and left it at thatt, but they make false claims about the drag and fuel burn (could be a defamation lawsuit coming), and then calls Musk an idiot. He's the one that made it personal.
As much as I personally dislike O'Leary, he never ran a company into the ground. He may not be as high-profile, but he's ten times the businessman Elon ever will be.
The funniest thing, though, is all the non-European Musk fanboys completely missing the mark on Ryanair. Listen, vaporware techbros, the airline has transformed flying in Europe. It has the most comprehensive network, let alone their unmatched point-to-point offering, and it's been able to generate new demand wherever it appeared. Wi-fi is absolutely not going to move the needle here.
And yes, ever my previous, UK-based VP and CTO would fly Ryanair to visit clients and our continental offices, because they offered nonstops from where he lived. You may despise their extreme upsells and over-the-top PR, but they manage their core business better than any other airline out there.
Nail on head. You can't just avoid Ryanair in Europe like you can Spirit and Frontier. If I'm in a mid sized EU city trying to get to another similar sized one in another country, Ryan or Wizz will be the only nonstop. A no brainer.
Also, if your options are 35€ on Ryan or 350€ on KLM/BA/Lufthansa, you simply buy the full package on Ryan and have a better experience than a backseat with the majors
Kind of like how a lot of people ignore you given your opinion of people you disagree with politically? I imagine Icarus is laying in their bed at this very moment unable to sleep over your refusal to read any of their posts going forward.
Juraj, please be prepared for the incoming directed at you from the U.S. airline fanboys. Some absolutely hate the truth about non-U.S. carriers.
As for Musk and the O’Leary, they really are marmite figures and I for one, cannot stand the stuff. The O’Leary is just like marmite as far as I am concerned. As for Musk, in spite of his habit of befuddling his brain cell with chemicals, he is an engineer at least.
Sean, I am not so sure about your seat cost comparison, in all cases. I did that exercise a while back to two EU capitals. BA won hands down for me as it would take me longer to travel to/from the Ryanair airports, etc. In those cases the increased travel expenses between home, airports and final destinations far exceeded any flight costs savings.
Irrespective of the correct drag penalty %, Ryanair’s entire business model is to give you a seat and nothing else for free, in order to keep airfares as low as possible. Whether it is WiFi, food, baggage, or anything else.
Europeans might have a love-hate relationship with O’Leary and Ryanair but it has been highly successful for decades because their business model meets the needs of European travelers. This argument feels like a lost cause for Musk.
I find some of you so strange. What does it take for you to consider someone a fascist? Do you have to be standing there as they are pushing people into ovens? Come on man, use your gray matter to think critically and become a friend of empiricism.
LOL I’ve made this same comment to Icarus before (he she they whatevs … is / are very low IQ).
I flew Ryanair once, and only once, in my 5 years living in the UK. They employ frontier-like tactics in their business. I promised I would never step foot on that dumpster fire again. Either the destination isn’t worth visiting or I’ll pay a premium to connect on literally anyone else. Michael O is a hypocrite and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that little lying leprechaun getting pied in the face. Lovely to see he also registers his personal car as a taxi so he can F over everyone else in Dublin traffic.
Mantis, please accept my ’helpful’ tick, as I agree with your assessment of the biased views posted by Icarus …. he/she/it epitomises hubris and ambition (the lack of). It uses the ‘C’ word to emphasise a point, yet it forgets that the anatomical part of the female anatomy to which it refers is extremely useful. The same cannot be said of Icarus.
Elon Mush very likely understand absolutely zero about a drag and the cost that means for an airline. The fact that SpaceX engineers calculate drag on launches does not make Musky an expert in drag calculation or more relevant airline operating costs. If I had to put my money on the person understanding the relevant cost and revenue opportunities here, it would go for O'Leary
Musk is relentless with his employees O'Leary with his customers. imagine combining the two
Ryan Reynolds, Meg Ryan, Ryan Gosling?
Not sure they have any airline experience though?
It's interesting to me how recently, everyone thinks they're an expert at everything they can learn in a day, and that they should seek to get involved in something they have no business getting involved in.
Why is everyone missing the most important part of why this is stupid. Elon cannot buy a controlling stake in RyanAir, EU airlines are required to have 51% EU ownership, to my knowledge Elon is not an EU Citizen so this conversation of him buying the airline is just dumb.
Couldn’t he just set up some type of dummy corporation or shell company registered in the EU? Or would that also need to have it’s owner be an EU citizen as well?
It’s more of a love-hate relationship. If he focuses on his companies, achieves real progress within electric vehicles, space travel, internet from satellites, etc. he’s our Henry Ford; but, like Ford, he gets distracted with supremacist nonsense and modern-day trolling… DOGE was certainly the low-point. He may have cost millions of lives with those cuts. At least Starlink is reliable. But, yeesh, everything else. His kids. The anti-trans stuff. *deep sigh*
I know that you are, but what am I…
Stop hitting yourself…
Feels like 2nd grade.
Andrew, it was clearly multiple Nazi salutes… sorry, I mean “ROMAN” signs of his “passion” and “excitement” and we should move on as quickly as possible, and continue to provide billions in public funding to subsidize this white South African pro-apartheid cohort along with Theil. Yay… /s
Folks, Mantis usually frequents VFTW (which should be known as ‘view from the RIGHT wing’ based on bigoted comments from folks like him), and has claimed that he’s an American, who gave up on us, and now lives in Asia, where he spreads right-wing misinformation on travel blogs. Context.
Folks, as I said below and some of you likely already know, Mantis usually frequents VFTW (which should be known as ‘view from the RIGHT wing’ based on bigoted comments from folks like him), and has claimed that he’s an American, who gave up on us, and now lives in Asia, where he spreads right-wing misinformation on travel blogs. Context.
Instead of calling others dumb, why not, hear them out, attempt to engage on-topic, and… I’m just kidding. YOU know everything. We should just SHUT UP and listen to YOU.
Who knows, maybe Elon knows about ‘drag,’ just not the business or aviation-kind… anyway, unrelated, but has anyone seen Oh Mary! yet?
It is a person level and not a corporation level.
Here is the exact regulation
"Member States and/or nationals of Member States own more than 50 % of the undertaking and effectively control it, whether directly or indirectly through one or more intermediate undertakings"
"Nationals" refers to individuals not corporations, so if an investment fund or company owns shares they have to determine and report the ownership % of the shares in their fund. For example if a fund owned by one American and one German owns 10% of an EU airline that is considered 5% EU ownership.
You asume that Americans actually care about rule of law. That seems to beva strech these days.
I an no fan of O’Leary but I will take him any day over the nazi fan musk boy
The main difference between O'Leary and Musk is that the former built his business model by using public subsidies while the other one used public subsidies to develop his business model.
Good thing the American government doesn't enforce European Law, the EU would effectively just stop the transaction by instructing banks in the EU to not participate in the transaction. As a last resort they could revoke the AOCs for RyanAir and not let the airline fly.
I’m new, but is 1990 the spam bot/unemployed person around here? What are the prompts on that AI response generator? (Larp of a) Millennial? Know-it-all? “Witty” and “biting” remarks?
Exactly. The market’s invisible hand hasn't just supported Ryanair; it has actively reshaped the competition. The ultimate validation of O’Leary’s model is that 'legacy' carriers like BA, Lufthansa, and Air France have essentially become low-cost carriers in disguise. They’ve adopted the same unbundling, paid seat selection, and buy-on-board policies. O'Leary won the culture war—everyone is playing by his rules now.
I would pay for Starlink if it were low cost: $5 a flight. But when I pay is critical. Paying on the plane: no. Paying at checkout as I pay for the flight: yes.
Elon Musk is not an engineer at Starlink so MOL's comment stands (or at least doesn't fall on that regard).
@Brad - EU would absolutely not instruct banks to not participate in the transaction, because such transaction would be perfectly legal. Elon is allowed to buy Ryanair, it's just that if he were to do it, Ryanair would no longer be considered an Eu-owned airline and therefore would lose EU traffic rights. Which would effectively mean that Elon would own a very big airline that basically couldn't fly anywhere.
@Aaron - If it were that easy, the whole issue of traffic rights would disappear, Ryanair would be flying all over the US, Emirates all over Europe, and Delta all over Asia. Of course you can't just make a shell company and wink 🙂
Eh, yes but also no. Anyone can own an airline in the EU, the citizenship is needed for traffic rights (and thus for Ryanair's business). But it can of course be any EU citizenship, Ryanair is already owned by people from all over Europe, not just from the member state that issues the AOC.
Maybe Viktor will give Elon the citizenship before losing the next election, lol?
Everyone seems to be forgetting that musk purchasing Ryanair is basically impossible due to EU Ownership rules of EU airlines being owned by foreign entities. An airline operating in the EU must be majority owned by EU nationals and or entities (this would also prohibit musk from setting up an EU registered firm to do this). So the idea of that even being possible for Musk is not relevant in the slightest as it is simply not possible under EU law
The Realization: when Elon wanders into an area you happen to know more than a bit about and proceeds to demonstrate he's an idiot.
Elon would fit right in as a poster on this Blog. Knows everything about everything.
So you’re saying that because that Sooth Efrican employs great engineers that their knowledge is automatically transferred to his head , is this like getting a Nobel Prize and then giving it away
Icarus's low IQ probably allows him to live on public benefits and ride the tram for free.
Haven't read this article. Don't know the beef. But I can tell you by default if the situation is Elon vs someone (be it a person, a company, a cat or even a dunkin donut hole) by default I'm siding with whomever is against elon with the lone exception of maybe an orange fat man who resembles Baron harkonnen.
Surely the important thing is to clarify if it's Ryanair, Ryan Air or RyanAir...
So please elaborate rather than regurgitating my comment as if it’s your own assessment.
Your post only demonstrates one thing, your complete and utter ignorance which has led to being brainwashed by far-left globalists.
Says the resident imbecile.
Not surprising the dumbest person on the board wants you to give his statements a chance…. LOL
So the engineer doesn’t understand drag, but the bozo CEO of an airline who’s never had a real job dos? Your bias is showing.
i like Elon very much he is very intelligent and very creative
and is having excellent ideas and imaginations to start any new
ventures no one has become so rich as billionaire in short span
he made drastic changes in the federal govt and saved billions of dollars. he does not have suitable assignment or project commensurate with his amount of knowledge and experience.
there is nothing wrong with him i like him and support his views
It's not clear O'Leary is being a child. He loves PR so much he'll even suggest the future may have paid airliner toilets and stand-only sections.
I read a great article this morning about Tesla dealers using defunct mall parking lots to store excess Tesla vehicles.
Dealers says yoy sales are down about 12-15%
One correction- musk actually doesn't know much of anything. A "benefit" of his years of recent antics is the tech-etc community has seen clearly that he's just a pitchman, a stock promoter, not an engineer or even entrepreneur of any kind..
Lots of horror stories to corroborate.
That's before discovering he's a raging Nazi from a white supermacist family, a complete transphobe/homephobe, and also participating in breaking many US laws with "doge" while leading directly to the deaths of many (many) by suddenly closing down usaid.
I don't like the ryanair guy but he's never done any of that. Only one of these folks is a vicious supervillain.
Ben, I'm surprised to see you doing a "both sides" with such a vile person.
Musk is not a space x engineer. O Leary isn’t wrong. But we must simp for Musk lest he knock us off his Nazified website
Nah, Elon's an idiot that lucked his way into his fortune. Like O'Leary or not, he runs a profitable business that's designed around add-ons and upsells. I highly doubt that Ryan Air hasn't done a cost-benefit analysis of adding a Starlink WIFI add-on and O'Leary is more likely to be right than Elon is with regards to its profitability.
Why give Elon any credibility at all here when his track record outside of his specialty (hyping tech companies to milk more government money) shows that he's at best Dunning-Kruger incarnate? Man claims he can run Twitter better, and he runs it into the ground by turning it into Stormfront with AI-generated CSAM. Man claims he's a 1337 gam3r and can't even navigate the UI of the game he's supposedly a world-class player in. Man claims he can solve the public transit and congestion problem and builds a one (1) lane tunnel under Vegas that only fits Teslas, the Teslas still require a driver, and passenger throughput is abysmal.
He's a rich dude that managed to hire competent enough people to not wreck a handful of his endeavors, and when he tries to assume hands-on control he fails miserably.
And before the people in the US get upset by this reality they should learn that US law requires US airlines be 75% owned and controlled by US nationals.
Cuckin' HARD lol...DONT BE MEAN TO ELON HE MADE A BILLION DOLLARS WHO CARES IF HES A TRASH MOUTHED NAZI I LOVE HIM
You mean both are idiots who thrive on attention--and here we give them their fuel so it's a useful spat. Free advertising. One is far more narcissistic than the other.
I like the idea of Musk buying Ryanair.
O'Leary then sets up a new airline with all the Ryanair staff, and Ryanair itself is worth nothing.
Chips away at Musk's wealth.
you can always accelerate this by not using X at all. I've found this pretty easy.
Oh, another business that Musk wants to fail with - just like he did with Twitter. In a similar way too; overpays, tries to back out, then forced to follow through, reduces profitability when called on his claims. And now twitter is just a shadow of its former self; inflated with bots and outages, and with degraded functionality.
No, but he runs a successful airline.
Elon doesn't. Nor does he run a successful business he last bought out - twitter. Having reduced all metrics on it since his ill-considered purchase that even he tried to back out.
SpaceX is one of the highest valued privately held companies in the US. To say he isn't running a successful business is absurd. And everyone should be reminded of Elon's background in Physics and the incredible amount of fluid dynamics knowledge it takes to put a rocket into space. To think an economics major knows more about that subject than Elon Musk is equally absurd.
As much as I do not like O'Leary, I do admit that he knows his customer quite well and knows what they are willing to pay for. As the article suggests he has run for a while a successful ultra low cost airline. There are many ways that it is successful - through fees, flying to/from places that legacy airlines do with a stop, etc....
I'm always in support of anyone that is against creepy Musk.... yuck! He's such a disgusting moron who always quacks like he knows everything. Please do not give any credit to this creepy weirdo who's fathered children with God knows how many idiotic bimbos.
I really wouldn't kill too many braincells analyzing this one.
O'Leary couldn't give a r*ts a***. In fact, he'd probably welcome the debt repayment and the funding to start all over again.
Amusing that Musk seemingly doesn't understand why the airline is called 'Ryan'air
Estimates show that each recent deportation has cost $1M. Each one. Sure, there's wasted spending to cut but if you think anything was 'saved' by cutting things like USAID you're incorrect. And any actual savings is being paid by US consumers through these idiotic tariff increases.