O'Leary calls €10 exit tax 'tourist suicide'

RYANAIR’S MICHAEL O’Leary was in flying form yesterday at a press briefing called, primarily, to have a cut at the Government over its €10 airport exit tax, which he describes as “tourist suicide”.

He has a point. It’s surely madness to add another tax to one of the few remaining industries on this island whose future is largely within our own control.

O’Leary didn’t stop there. He predicted that Aer Lingus would be bust within 18 to 20 months if it continues to burn cash.

He said Aer Lingus’s load factors from its newly launched base in Gatwick had been “dire”, and predicted that it and the Belfast base would close “because neither of them work”.

O’Leary said Aer Lingus chairman Colm Barrington and other board members misled investors with claims made in a defence document last December that the airline was profitable and was growing its short- and long-haul businesses.

He said Ryanair would be asking Barrington to explain his comments at Aer Lingus’s upcoming agm. Fortunately for Barrington, O’Leary won’t be attending the meeting. “I’m too busy running a profitable, growing airline.”

Aviation regulator Cathal Guiomard was given his usual filleting, with O’Leary suggesting that scrapping his office would save €5 million a year.

The Dublin Airport Authority was slammed for making a “bags” of its plastic bag charge and for hiking fees for passenger charges and check-in desks.

O’Leary reiterated that Ryanair would close its airport check-in desks in October.

Bag drop desks are also on his hit list. In O’Leary’s plan, passengers could bring as many carry-on bags as they like through the airport to the steps of the plane, where they would then be put in the hold.

Passengers would, in effect, become baggage handlers. Who’s to say he won’t introduce a priority loading fee?

Plans for a long-haul service are still “very much on the agenda”, but “it can’t happen until we can get a fleet of long-haul planes cheaply and that won’t happen for another two or three years”.

How many marks would he give Brian Cowen after his first year in charge? “About two out of 10,” he said. For? “I suppose effort, and because he comes from the country, not Dublin.”