Michael O’Leary and Ryanair both top the charts

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary, the Roy Keane of the aviation industry, will appear on The Late Late Show on Friday to shoot the breeze, or perhaps the first person to get on his nerves.

Watch out, Tubs.

New figures from anna.aero, a quirky online publication for the aviation industry, show that for the second year running Ryanair opened the most new routes of any airline in the world. It launched 134 new routes in 2014, 40 fewer than the previous year, but still 50 more than its nearest rival, Germanwings.

Easyjet came third with 83, while Veuling, owned by Wille Walsh’s IAG, opened 80 new routes in 2014.

Ryanair doesn’t only open new routes, however. A previous analysis by anna.aero showed the airline also axed 22 routes last summer, as it shifted capacity away from its traditional bailiwick (landing strips in the middle of nowhere) to more conveniently located airports closer to big cities.

With Ryanair due to open at least three new bases in 2015 – in Copenhagen; Bratislava, Slovakia; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal – anna.aero expects it to top the charts once again in 12 month’s time.

Expansion aside, O'Leary's fellow guests on The Late Late Show tonight will include Deepak Chopra, the spiritualist and promoter of new age medicine.

O’Leary, who doesn’t go for that sort of touchy-feely stuff, may well have to be dug out of him.

Also on the show will be Dubliner Roisin Hogan, who had a good run last year on TV reality show The Apprentice, where the top prize is a job working for Alan Sugar.

The Irish version of The Apprentice, which was presented by Bill Cullen, was axed in 2012. Imagine if they revived it with O'Leary sitting behind the desk.

Intriguing, but it would never fly.