An incredible Irish success story that is begrudged at every turn. Lets ask ourselves why:

1. Confrontational, pejorative style in their dealings with “old Ireland” institutions. e.g. Leinster House, trade unions, Aer Lingus, Aer Rianta (supposedly defunct, but ideology is alive and well).

2. They have the audacity as a European airline to buy American, as opposed to from Airbus. An aside: I much prefer traveling by Boeing; you simply cannot beat the experience of a company that produced products that were regularly pummeled by flack during the unpleasantness of ’39 to ’45, as opposed to a plastic kite dreamed up by some latte-sipping surrender monkey in Toulouse.

3. In-your-face advertising, usually quite rightly having a pop at the opposition’s price-fixing, tardiness, baggage lost figures or the UK or Irish governments: BBC News Aug 06

4. Regularly cocks a snoot at the confidence trick that is the alleged human causation of “Global Warming”.

5. Anti-elitist. Practically free travel for the masses.

6. Funny, you never hear the champagne socialists defending such a laudable public transport success (powered by capitalism, not their half-baked notions, of course).

7. A high profile (and, lets be honest, a little bit nutty) CEO. Wiki Bio

8. Incredibly expensive in-flight food & drink: thisismoney.co.uk. But their purchase is not mandatory.

9. Jealousy? They operate a very young, if not the youngest fleet in Europe, and are expanding: Flug Revue Aug 07

9.10. Last but not least, they are rapidly turning themselves into a world-beater, and that just does not sit well with old world mindsets.


The company that should be a proud boast, but is instead more often than not used as a punch line.

For example, €20 return for 2 people to a destination 1,600 km away? And most of that goes to the government in tax? Where else can you get that kind of value this side of an Albanian brothel? Jesus, they can keep my bags at those prices…


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