Michael O'Leary Quotes & Sayings

If drink sales are falling off, we get the pilots to engineer a bit of turbulence. That usually spikes sales. — Michael O'Leary

People say the customer is always right, but you know what - they're not. Sometimes they are wrong and they need to be told so. — Michael O'Leary

All flights are fuelled with Leprechaun wee and my bullshit! — Michael O'Leary

It's a great incentive to work long hours. I limit the holiday to two weeks and then get the hell back to the office. If I had my choice I wouldn't take holidays but my wife insists on time with the kids. That's enough. Prior to getting married I never took a holiday. — Michael O'Leary

The unions need to be taken on. British Airways is massively over-staffed and has got to get its costs down ... The problem for [chief executive] Willie Walsh is that the board of BA has no spine, no balls and no vision. — Michael O'Leary

I'm here with Howard Millar and Michael Cawley, our two deputy chief executives. But they're presently making love in the gentleman's toilets, such is their excitement at today's results. — Michael O'Leary

The French have never produced a great philosopher. Great wine maybe, but no great philosophers. — Michael O'Leary

The European Union spends most of its time either suing me, torturing me, criticizing me or condemning me for lowering the cost of air travel all over Europe. — Michael O'Leary

Air transport is just a glorified bus operation. — Michael O'Leary

Do we carry rich people on our flights? Yes, I flew on one this morning and I'm very rich. — Michael O'Leary

The airline business is it is mostly run by a bunch of spineless nincompoops who actually don't want to stand up to the environmentalists and call them the lying wankers that they are. — Michael O'Leary

Short of committing murder, negative publicity sells more seats than positive publicity. — Michael O'Leary

The chattering bloody classes, or what I call the liberal Guardian readers, they're all buying SUVs to drive around London. I smile at these loons who drive their SUVs down to Sainsbury's and buy kiwi fruit from New Zealand. They're flown in from New Zealand for Christ sakes. They're the equivalent of environmental nuclear bombs! — Michael O'Leary

Ryanair brings lots of different cultures to the beaches of Spain, Greece and Italy, where they couple and copulate in the interests of pan-European peace. — Michael O'Leary

MBA students come out with: 'My staff is my most important asset.' Bullshit. Staff is usually your biggest cost. We all employ some lazy bastards who needs a kick up the backside, but no one can bring themselves to admit it. — Michael O'Leary

I'm disrespectful towards authority. I think the prime minister of Ireland is a gobshite — Michael O'Leary

I'm probably just an obnoxious little bollocks. Who cares? — Michael O'Leary

I have more money than I am ever going to need. Financially, I'm fine for the next couple of hundred years. — Michael O'Leary

Why does every plane have two pilots? Really, you only need one pilot. Let's take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it. — Michael O'Leary

Germans will crawl bollock-naked over broken glass to get low fares. — Michael O'Leary

The most influential person in Europe in the last 20 to 30 years has been Margaret Thatcher. Without her we'd all be living in some French bloody unemployed republic. — Michael O'Leary

We should try to eliminate things that unnecessarily piss people off. — Michael O'Leary

Get back to work you slacker or you're fired. — Michael O'Leary

Code-sharing, alliances, and connections are all about "how do we screw the poor customer for more money?" — Michael O'Leary

Are we going to say sorry for our lack of customer service? Absolutely not. — Michael O'Leary

She's coming here with Aer Lingus. — Michael O'Leary

The airline industry is full of bullshitters, liars and drunks. We excel at all three in Ireland. — Michael O'Leary

It reminds me of two drunks leaning on each other. — Michael O'Leary

I should get the Nobel peace prize - screw Bono. — Michael O'Leary

The police force were outstanding in their field. But all they did was stand in their field. They kept passengers on board while they played with a suspect package for two and three quarter hours. Extraordinary. — Michael O'Leary

University is the best couple of years of your life. Nowhere else can you drink and chase as many birds. — Michael O'Leary

If global warming meant temperatures rose by one or two degrees, France would become a desert, which would be no bad thing. The Scots would grow wine and make buffalo mozzarella. — Michael O'Leary

We want to annoy the whenever we can. The best thing we can do with environmentalists is shoot them. — Michael O'Leary

I came into business to make money, I make no apology for that. I wanted to make a lot of money but after the first £50million or £100million, it became less about making money and more about having fun. — Michael O'Leary

We need more people to go into business and fewer wasting our lives becoming bureaucrats and civil servants. — Michael O'Leary

Ryanair's biggest achievement? Bringing low fares to Europe and still lowering em. Biggest failure? Hiring me. — Michael O'Leary

When you look at the number of stupid people who have succeeded in business, you clearly don't have to be very bright. Business is all about getting your sales up and your costs down, the bit in the middle is profit. — Michael O'Leary

In Sussex, if it's not the Devil that makes an appearance, then it's likely to be a dragon. — Michael O'Leary

Anyone who thinks Ryanair flights are some sort of bastion of sanctity where you can contemplate your navel is wrong. We already bombard you with as many in-flight announcements and trolleys as we can. Anyone who looks like sleeping, we wake them up to sell them things. — Michael O'Leary

We think they should pay €60 for being so stupid. — Michael O'Leary

One of the weaknesses of the company now is it is a bit cheap and cheerful and overly nasty, and that reflects my personality. — Michael O'Leary

A lot of lies and misinformation has been put about by eco nuts on the back of a report by an idiot economist [Sir Nicholas Stern]. Environmental head bangers are talking nonsense when they claim that aviation is the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. Coal-fired and oil-fired power stations are the biggest contributor of carbon but I have yet to hear any fearless eco warriors advocating nuclear power as they drive around in their SUVs to their next protest meeting. — Michael O'Leary

I'm Europe's most underpaid and underappreciated boss. I'm paid about 20 times more than the average Ryanair employee and I think the gap should be wider. — Michael O'Leary