A love/hate affair with Ryanair

Ryanair is one of the great success stories in the aviation industry, so why does it divide opinion so much and why do people who don’t like it still use it?

Like Marmite, Ryanair is the airline people either love or hate.

The very mention of the name of its high-profile and strident chief executive Michael O’Leary, who is the human embodiment of the airline, provokes strong reactions among travellers at Dublin airport.

“Obnoxious - that’s the one word I think of when I think of that man,” says one smartly-dressed young woman who gets straight to the point.

“Michael O’Leary’s a mighty man!” a cheery looking gentleman says, while another lady says Mr O’Leary “should be running the country”. She seems buoyed at the very thought of it.

This evening’s Panorama Programme (2030 on BBC One, then available on the iPlayer) looks at how Ryanair seems to polarise public opinion.

For more details on the programme see the BBC Business News Website

Fascinatingly, Ryanair have made available the correspondence between the BBC and themselves in the run up to the programme. Download it below.

RyanAir_Panorama_Correspondence.pdf

You’ll also find a comparison of the employee cultures in Ryanair and Virgin at HR Case Studies: Virgin and Ryanair - Compare and Contrast