In his all-too-imitable style, given to today's
Sunday Independent. Here are some of the jucier quotations:-
The Ryanair chief defended monthly league tables outlining how much fuel each pilot was using.
'Absolutely. We keep a very tight hold of all waste in Ryanair....It's the silly season and the Olympics are over so let's talk and write a lot of ****e about Ryanair planes running out of fuel.
Do we publish weekly fuel performance tables? Absolutely. We do it to try and improve fuel efficiency.'...
A Ryanair memorandum to pilots dated February 2010, seen by the Sunday Independent, states: 'The routine carriage of 300 kg of extra is discouraged: our PLOGS [Pilots' Logs/flight plan] are generally "fat" with fuel....If we all carry 300 kg of fuel on each sector we burn an extra 7.5 kg per hour unnecessarily.
With an average sector length of two hours, that is 19,500 kg wasted across the fleet daily: the spot price for jet fuel in Rotterdam market on January 8, 2010 was $2.17 per US gallon. Simple maths works out that the extra 300 kg cost the company US $5m (€4.05m) per year.'
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Mr O'Leary accused IALPA's spokesman Evan Cullen of 'scaremongering'...The Aer Lingus Pilots' association [sic] have a go at Ryanair? There's a surprise. You get an idiot on the nine o'clock news who says, 'without fuel airplanes can't fly.' In actual fact he is wrong. They are called gliders but facts have never got in the way of an IALPA false claim,' he said....
'The inference that Europe's largest airline with a 28-year unblemished safety record would be stopped by some Spanish halfwit is beyond even a joke,' he said angrily.
He said that he didn't allow the Irish Airline Pilots' Association anywhere near Ryanair 'partly because when their lips are moving they are talking horses**t.'
Full text here:-
O'Leary rejects bullying claims in wake of fuel mayday calls - National News - Independent.ie