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Ryanair boss thanks Elon Musk for 'boost' in sales after online row (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 week ago by pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Musk has suggested he could buy the budget airline and called O'Leary "insufferable" and "an idiot", after O'Leary rejected the idea of using Musk's Starlink technology to provide wifi on flights.

O'Leary said at the press conference that his team is going to X's office in Dublin to give Musk a free Ryanair ticket to thank him for the "wonderful boost" in publicity he's had.

"If he wants to call me an idiot, he wouldn't be the first, and he certainly won't be the last ... But if it helps to boost Ryanair sales, you could insult me all day, every day."

On the prospect of Musk buying the Irish airline, O'Leary said: "We're a publicly owned company. He's free to [buy shares] at any time, but non-European citizens cannot own a majority of European airlines."

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 59 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Idk, I think he looked at the numbers. Starlink is a bad bet.

O'Leary added that the cost of installing Starlink would be €250m (£218m) to fit all necessary equipment — and would increase fuel costs by €100m (£87m) per year.

He said he thinks only 5% of Ryanair passengers would pay for wifi, so there would be poor return on investment.

[–] PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I'm going to preface this by stating that it's my assumption and not fact:

O'Leary isn't daft. I don't like him and I don't like Ryanair, but he's done well with the brand from a financial perspective, in an industry that's all about the fine margins.

I'm quite sure your view is correct, it's probably only about the numbers - for better or worse. If Starlink was a cheaper alternative to most in the market, and their projected connectivity sales outweigh the operating and capital costs, there'd be Starlink all over Ryanair planes. As it happens, the numbers probably look a deep red on the spreadsheet so it's in the "fuck right off" box.

I've no love for either of them but it's still nice to see Elon getting a poke in the eye.

[–] limelight79@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

I assume people are buying Ryanair tickets because they don't want to spend any more money than absolutely necessary. So he's probably right about the low rate of purchasers.

Of course Elon would be upset that the business case doesn't work for someone.

[–] qupada@fedia.io 7 points 1 week ago

Assuming the 5% estimate is correct, the back-of-an-envelope math is pretty easy.

Their annual report says 200M passengers in 2024-2025 financial year.

If they wanted to pay off the hardware in 5 years they'd spend a total of €750M on it and additional fuel, potentially being paid by 50M (5% of 1B) passengers, necessitating a minimum €15 charge to break even.

That is before you consider paying interest on a loan for purchasing the hardware, signage (their website says they have 643 planes with a total of 122,941 seats, just printing an information card for each seat back could be a substantial cost), staff training, the cost of the time each plane is out of service for the installation, etc, etc.

Could you try a lower price and hope that more people pay? Sure, but that feels pretty risky, and I'm sure they thought about that too.

Much as I enjoy having WiFi on flights and all, agree with the other posters here that it just ain't adding up.

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Isn't Ryanair's business model short flights, and at rock bottom prices? If their customer base is people looking to pay the minimum amount, for a short flight, I'd say very few would pay for WiFi.

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I took Ryanair once and I'm sure they would price it at "I'd use it only at a gunpoint" level

Plus most flights are ultra short. Are people so addicted that they can't be offline for 30 minutes? In the time they can enjoy the Ryanair staff selling the lottery raffle tickets or asking everyone if they want to drink a €3 cup of water or if want to buy cigarettes at full retail prices

[–] Twongo@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

thinking about it: a ryanair flight lasts how long on average? an hour?