Ryanair more than doubled profits to €820 million in the second quarter, and shares – up 45 per cent in 2025 – are flying high. Not that you’d know it from Michael O’Leary’s mood on Ryanair’s latest earnings call.
It was less a corporate update, more a one-man roast, with O’Leary letting fly at regulators, rivals and unions with his usual blend of sarcasm and scorn.
He dismissed the European Parliament as “a home for crazies” and mocked Germany as having “no aviation policy whatsoever”. France’s air traffic control strikes drew particular ire: he urged Brussels to let overflights bypass national disruption.
“It does mean upsetting some French unions, but I think that’s always a cause well worthwhile. The more you can upset French unions, the better.”
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Spain’s consumer fines on low-cost airlines?
“Minister [Pablo] Bustinduy’s mad cap bag fines,” he said.
Dublin Airport’s 32 million passenger cap?
“Indefensible” in a country “five years from an election”, run by politicians “about to go on three months’ holidays.”
Beleaguered airline Wizz Air was treated less as a rival than a punchline. Asked by a UBS analyst about the “low-cost” competitor’s retreat from Abu Dhabi and a potential expansion into central and eastern Europe, O’Leary said he felt compelled to explain that ”Wizz is not a low-cost competitor of Ryanair. It’s a high-cost competitor ... and therefore, not really competitor at all.”
Wizz will be “taken out” within five years. “We welcome the competition,” O’Leary added.
He signed off briskly: “Thank you very much, everybody, and we’ll all go back to work now”.
