Based... my comments were tongue in cheek. However, its less than 2 months since the freeze and mid August is nowhere near the end of 2009. I often find that RYA's comments should be taken with a bag of salt! Like the 140m investment in LBIA and 1000 jobs created!
I understand where you are coming from in that Ryanair will always choose to make statements which paint them in the best light possible. They also make them in a way that they know what the media will grab for headlines. However, I'm not sure about having to take these with a bag of salt, maybe just understand them better.
Yes August is nowhere near the end of the year and that's why they still haven't reviewed their growth freeze at existing UK bases. They never made a statement saying they wouldn't be opening any new UK bases this year.
The $140m investment figure is based on Boeing's prices, well Boeing's 2008 advertised prices for a new 737-800 are actually $72.5m-$81m. I assume you feel they should quote the actual price they paid? I'm not sure that this would be any more relevant and it certainly wouldn't make good commercial sense!
In terms of the 1000 jobs created, at the risk of being lambasted for repetition, I believe it's as valid an estimation as any given that it's far from being an exact science. Here's a link I posted earlier to an estimation by a number of aviation sources across Europe, observed by the European Commission, in which they actually estimate 4,000 jobs per 1 million passengers!
http://www.eraa.org/intranet/documen...5fastfacts.pdf
Two ryanair aircraft or Three???
While Ryanair often release conflicting schedules that are then tidyed up at a later stage, in this case it does seem possible that they'll base a 3rd aircraft. As the schedule stands at the moment, the 4 x weekly Faro flights and 2 of the 14 x weekly Dublin flights can't be operated with 2 aircraft fully utilised on the other routes.