What in the world is “gobbiness?”

(this is the companion post for the Business Journal column on Ryanair’s lovable (?) and zany CEO, Michael O’Leary, and how he’s transforming the airline industry)

“A low profile is bad for business business.” Let’s start there.

“Strong conviction” and “Outlandish ideas” must be O’Leary’s co-middle names. As has been reported by columnist Felix Gillette and others, paraphrasing … In the last 18 months, O’Leary announced that he was planning to replace the last 10 rows of seats on his aircraft with 15 rows of upright “standing seats” – vertical benches with shoulder harnesses and arm rests – which would allow him to pack 30 more passengers onto each plane. He now says that after taking a look at the drawings, he’s decided that vertical seats won’t save enough room. Instead, he has a better idea: replace the last 10 rows with a standing cabin, outfitted with various handrails, much like a New York City subway car, only without the benches and the panhandlers. The increased capacity would lower fares 20-25%. ”The argument against it,” he says, “is that if there’s ever a crash, people will be injured. Hey, if there’s ever a crash, people in the sit-down seats will be injured, too.” I’ll bet the regulators cannot stand Michael’s logic, as sound as it is. Look, revolutionaries have a way of firmly, boldly, and loudly planting their identity stakes into the ground.

O’Leary worked hard to become known as the most unpleasant man in Ireland. He pulled off obnoxious stunts, including dressing up as the Pope to launch a route to Rome and riding a tank into an airport outside London. He took out advertisements insulting high-ranking government officials, including a series of infamous ads in 2001 depicting Mary O’Rourke, then the nation’s top transportation official, first in a bubble bath (“Mary, Mary quite contrary,” read the ad, “How does your monopoly grow? It doesn’t”) and later as a cowgirl, under the headline, “Welcome to Dublin Airport. This is a stickup!” During interviews and radio appearances, he further insulted public figures, once calling Ireland’s former Taoiseach (the equi- valent of Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern, a “useless wastrel.”

Which politicians does he admire? As reported by Stuart Jeffries of the Saturday Interview: “Not since Thatcher and Reagan left the scene at such tragically early ages have I admired any politician. For all the abuse they got, those two fundamentally changed the US and UK economies. Governments since have pissed that away by wasting money on the NHS and all these other useless quangos. Governments never create jobs – they should just get out of the way.” Um, yeah. ’Nuff said.

Another subtle O’Leary quote: ”We finally exposed the myth that air travel was some kind of a uniquely sexual experience,” he says. “It’s not. It’s just a commoditized way of getting from A to B.”
Again from Felix Gillette: Until 1994, when he became CEO, O’Leary was fairly conventional. He avoided the limelight. He wore blazers. He was largely unknown, even to the Dublin press. After stepping into the top job, though, he realized that a low profile was bad for business. He saw how other flamboyant airline executives saved advertising money by generating loads of free publicity. Herb Kelleher embodied the fun-loving experience that he was selling with Southwest; Richard Branson channeled a sense of adventure, which he used to market Virgin Atlantic. O’Leary chose to embody the role of a cheap, no-nonsense, slightly unpleasant Everyman, which he would exploit to sell a cheap, slightly unpleasant flying experience to the Everyman.
Prior to 1987, Ryanair was operating one plane out of Waterford airport and losing money, and O’Leary had been hired to advise founder Tony Ryan on his personal income tax. Ryan sent young Michael off to the U.S. In Dallas, O’Leary met Herb Kelleher, who ran his airline – Southwest Air – on four principles: fly one type of plane to cut engineering costs; keep overheads down; turn aircraft around quickly; ditch air miles. O’Leary copied those basics. In the subsequent 24 years, Ryanair has grown inexorably. He ditched his tax accountant wardrobe and started showing up for work in jeans. At Ryanair headquarters, he cultivated a reputation for penuriousness, banning cover sheets on faxes and requiring employees to buy their own pens.
If you think that O’Leary is the only one (besides Southwest Air) who thinks unconventionally in the airline industry, then check out this article about Spirit Air’s Ben Baldanza. Maybe I’ll write about him next …