Inside Business Podcast: Another week, another Ryanair fiasco

Ryanair is making headlines for all the wrong reasons for a second week running, with 400,000 customers affected by further flight cancellations over the winter period.

On the latest Inside Business podcast, Barry O’Halloran says Michael O’Leary’s airline could have been forgiven for an isolated mess up that led to last week’s PR disaster and the cancellation of two per cent of its flights over a six week period, but this latest crisis gives the impression of an organisation that is stumbling.

He is joined by consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope who says Mr O’Leary’s announcement that Ryanair is to “grow more slowly” over the coming months due to “sensible schedule changes” is a nicer way of saying that he doesn’t have enough pilots or crew to cover shifts.

In the second half of the show, presenter Dominic Coyle speaks to CEO of Hospitality Ulster Colin Neill, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland Adrian Cummins and The Irish Times business affairs correspondent Mark Paul, about the thorny issue of the hospitality sector VAT rate, either side of the border.