Ryanair CEO launches ‘Great Idiots’ seat sales aimed at Elon Musk amid controversy – National

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary launched a “Great Idiots” seat sale on Tuesday – aimed at Elon Musk and his supporters – after a Starlink executive targeted O’Leary for passing on a proposal to install satellite-based internet service on its commercial airline fleet.

In an X post on Tuesday, the Dublin-based airline said it was selling 100,000 seats for €16.99 and encouraged people to buy them “before Musk finds us.”

Their fallout began last week after the billionaire called O’Leary a “complete idiot” for ignoring a proposal, including a bid to buy the budget airline.

Musk suggested he might “put someone whose real name is Ryan in charge,” and conducted a poll on X to test the idea, in which three-quarters of respondents supported it.

O’Leary made light of Musk’s pleading, telling reporters at a Dublin press conference on Wednesday, “If he wants to call me an idiot, he wouldn’t be the first, and he certainly won’t be the last …

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He went on to call social media a “cesspit,” but admitted it was important to Ryanair’s marketing.

O’Leary said putting Wi-Fi on his planes through Musk’s Internet plan would cost about $250 million a year, including additional fuel costs, but he would welcome the investment.

“Ryanair will be open to investment from the world’s richest man, but it is not possible under European Union rules that prohibit foreign ownership of airlines,” he said.

Ryanair is also a publicly held company, but Musk is “free to buy back shares at any time,” O’Leary reasoned.

EU-based airlines must also be majority owned by EU citizens, Swiss citizens, Norwegian citizens, Icelandic citizens or Liechtenstein citizens, as ruled by the European Parliament.

“If he wants to invest in Ryanair, we would think it’s a very good investment,” O’Leary said, adding the return would be better than that from X. “Mr. Musk is welcome to buy shares, but he has no control,” he added.

O’Leary also confirmed that their public spat, which he called Musk’s “Twitter tantrum,” led to the seat reservations.

“They’re up about two or three percent in the last five days, which given our volumes, is a big improvement,” he said. He later told a reporter that bookings are strong for January to March, which is the last quarter of Ryanair’s financial year.

O’Leary said he had been in discussions with Starlink for a year while considering Wi-Fi, but decided it was too expensive to invest.

He said Ryanair was looking for a supplier willing to fund the installation, and that the two sides disagreed on how many passengers would use the service.

“Starlink people believe that nine percent of our passengers will happily pay for Wi-Fi access. Our experience, unfortunately, tells us that we think that less than 10 percent of our passengers will pay for this access,” he said, adding that Musk knows “zero” about flying.

– With files from Reuters

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