My friend Luc preparing for our flight to Sweden
Dreading my surely imminent demise
During my year abroad, I took the budget airline Ryanair all over Europe. Besides being a great way to get places cheaply, it was just about the worst thing ever. Pretzel crumbs in my seat because they were too stingy to clean up the cabin between flights; no complimentary cups of water; no seat trays or even seat-back pockets; ads blasting throughout the entire flight; hidden fees at every turn; flight attendants that looked like they would rather break the windows and suffocate at 30,000 feet than help you secure your carry-on luggage in the overhead bins. So here are some hilarious quotes by the very outspoken CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, a man whose life goal is to make a Ryanair appear under Webster’s definition of “utter crap.” He has voiced intentions to abolish the last 10 rows of seats to have standing room only (thus cramming in more passengers); to get rid of two out of the three bathrooms in order to add six more seats; and to charge passengers to use the bathroom on board. This man makes my frugal parents seem like reckless spenders in comparison, and after reading these quotes I’m just grateful that I made it through all my travels on Ryanair alive.
“Seatbelts don’t matter.”
A woman who complained about having to pay a steep fee for printing her boarding pass at the airport “should pay a 60 euro fee for being so stupid.”
Last year, commenting in his idea for in-flight porn, O’Leary said: “I’m not talking about having it on screens on the back of seats for everyone to see. It would be on handheld devices.”
“An airline is nothing more than a bus with wings on.”
On service: “Our flights are noisy, full and we are always trying to sell you something.”
“No we shouldn’t give you a bloody cup of coffee. We only charge 19 Euro for the ticket.”
(All quotes from this San Francisco Chronicle article.)
About The Author
Jenny
Jenny Marshall studied Language, Culture, and Society at the University of California Santa Barbara, and now teaches English in Spain. Here she writes about the intersection of language and culture, and lives a life translated by travel.
