O’Leary will be judged on his handling of the crisis
It’s not as if Mr O’Leary has not been in difficult places before. However, on this occasion, it’s hard to see how Ryanair did not see it coming or did nothing about it.
Ryanair has blamed staff holidays, weather and air traffic control as well as recent failures to meet its track record for on-time arrivals.
But no matter which way you slice it or dice it, it
seems clear that Ryanair had plenty of notice of the need to ensure that staff had taken their necessary leave time and had enough flying hours left.
Whilst it is reported that Ryanair had benefitted from the Irish Aviation Authority’s (IAA) different interpretation of flying hours requirements with respect to the start of the working year, IAA did accept some time ago that its interpretation needed to mirror the one in Europe.
It appears that this placed Ryanair in a dilemma, with the end of the peak travel period still some six weeks away and pilots increasing their flying hours. Losing
pilots to a competitor did not help either.
What is surprising, is that Ryanair did not act much earlier. It’s hard to see how what’s happening now could ever be seen as a saving solution.
Even if you plan to fly over 130 million passengers a year and have some of the cheapest flights around, cancelling up to 50 flights a day over the next few weeks is not a good thing.
Disruption by bad weather comes with a get out of jail card, while unnecessary human error gets you little sympathy.
Presumably, Mr O’Leary assumes that this will blow over and because humans are fickle with short memories, price and convenience will come back to the fore. After all, that’s what they have done repeatedly in the past. It’s all a pity.
Ryanair was one of the pioneers of cheap travel this side of the pond. It helped to change the shape of travel in Europe.
It had to fight huge obstacles to get itself up off the ground and then to grow.
Mr O’Leary’s style of
management, and indeed in dealing with customers, has been confrontational at best. Some of the British ‘Red Tops’ have gone to town on Ryanair’s woes.
Some have even said that this could be Mr O’Leary’s “Ratner moment”, named for Gerald Ratner and his successful high-street jewelry chain until he publicly
described some of the low-cost items as “total crap”.
It’s an unfair characterisation. For sure, Ryanair’s reputation has been damaged. The only question is how badly.
How the airline addresses this current debacle will play a big part in how quickly it stages a recovery.
Not being fully helpful to customers who will be entitled by law to compensation would not go down at all well. Giving the benefit
of doubt to Ryanair and to Mr O’Leary would be to
accept what the airline has done for so many people.
It has contributed to the airline industry in Europe
and given the freedom to
millions of people across
the continent. I can only wish him well.
Mr O’Leary and the airline will, however, be judged on how well it handles this very real crisis.
