O'Leary in flying form at agm

RYANAIR’S MICHAEL O’Leary was in flying form at the airline’s agm yesterday. Profits will rebound sharply this year, helped by increasing passenger numbers and a steep decline in oil costs, he said.

O’Leary also confidently predicted that Ryanair would boost its profit to €800 million by 2012, by which time it would be carrying about 80 million passengers. This would make it twice the size it was in 2007.

Any move on the long-haul front will be at least two to three years away and it won’t be by Ryanair, but by an associate company.

Those hoping he might fly from Ireland to Cyprus, Greece, Turkey or Russia had their hopes dashed. The flight times would be too long and he wouldn’t make enough money on them.

O’Leary continues to insist that there will be no third bid for Aer Lingus and forecast that it would run out of net cash by 2012.

“I simply believe that Aer Lingus will need a massive financial restructuring within the next 18 months to two years,” he told reporters in the media scrum after the agm, citing its ongoing operating losses and pension deficit.

Does he think new chief executive Christoph Mueller can deliver a radical plan to restructure the business?

“Willie Walsh couldn’t bring about significant reform. Dermot Mannion couldn’t bring about significant reform.

“The present management team, who I don’t know and therefore have no personal issue with, won’t bring about significant reform.

“If you have a dysfunctional ownership structure, which Aer Lingus has, you won’t bring about any reform.”

He has a point. A 15-person board is too big for the size of the company and there hardly needs to be five people representing the Government and the employee share ownership trust.

Then again, Ryanair’s major presence on the Aer Lingus share register is hardly helpful to its management team.