He's actually quoted saying this day would come in Siobhan Creaton's book on Ryanair. he never claimed to believe this was a long term strategy but it would get them so far on the onus that "all publicity is good publicity". That day may well have come, though in fairness it HAS taken them a long way without adding in too many costs like, er basic marketing and something called "customer service".
When Airline started the folks at easyjet had the same nervous thoughts. TV wanted controversy, ez wanted publicity. In the end both seemed happy with what they got. They also believed that the easyjet name was in front of 8m people every program, and not all was negative.
RYR has not had TV, but it has had publicity by the truck loads. They believed it would be profitable, overall. I wonder if their publicised reaction to RPG will turn out to be other than negative. The more noise they make against it the more ammunition is given to RPG. It will depend on how RPG handle the
PR of their campaign; but this might become a case where 'all publicity is good publicity' might not hold true anymore for RYR.