From an unbiased outsider's viewpoint, I'd like to make a couple of comments.
1) Ruling by fear the "bawl 'em out school of business" as
CaptSensible says is never a good way to run a company. Why? Because if you're treated like a dog, sooner or later you'll bite back. Also, you become innured to the abuse and therefore when it really counts it's disregarded. Far better is the iron fist in a velvet glove approach - as employed by Barbara Cassani.
2) Irish aviation is not so much about what you know but who you know. Most of the bods at Hawkins House are ex Air Corps, and if you're ex Air Corps as well you're A for Away ... and if you want to set up an operation over there you get pointed in the direction of a bod who would "make a great Flight Ops Director/Chief Pilot" ... and surprise surprise, he's ex Air Corps!
3) I'd be wondering where growth is going to come from to keep the shareholders happy. The UK market is pretty much saturated these days, and FR needs to be expanding further into Europe. The only problem is that - despite the so-called open skies that's supposed to exist in Europe today - domestic markets are almost impossible to break into. Germany would be a logical next step, but they'll be blocked by Lufthansa and the competition from high speed rail links is problematic as well.
Incidentally,
Capt Sensible you're right about MO'L having a newsagents ... when he gave up his training as a chartered accountant he bought into one, and leveraged that up into another, and another, and another...!