I would love to know what they thought the CAA told them two years ago. Very surprising that a well resourced company would rely on CAA best guess / advice and guidance when the CAA made it clear all along that there was much uncertainty and nothing would be certain until a deal was agreed or we left without a deal. Assuming the worst case scenario and we had crashed out, why did they think that it would be appropriate and fair on other UK operators if they were allowed to set up a UK shell company with one aircraft and then continue to operate another 60 odd on the Irish Register?
Unfortunately for Ryanair, this UK register requirement slightly upsets their finely tuned model with one common fleet, one regulator and the ability to pool resources. The last thing they need is divergence and two regulators forcing their very standardised fleet into two different mod states.