Irish budget airline Ryanair (RYAAY) has left the door open for future collaboration with tech titan Elon Musk despite a recent war of words between him and airline boss Michael O’Leary over Starlink.
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Wrong Time for Starlink
Presenting its Q3 results today, Neil Sorahan, the airline’s finance director, did not rule out using Musk’s Starlink satellite internet technology on its aircraft in the future. “At the moment it’s the wrong time and at the wrong price,” he said.
O’Leary, speaking to RTE’s Morning Ireland, complimented the Starlink system and said free Wi-Fi would be coming to low-cost airlines in the coming years.
However, he said the technology still needs to improve and that Ryanair was “just not willing to fund an installation cost and fuel penalty of about €200 million a year.”
O’Leary’s refusal to countenance the use of Starlink on Ryanair planes earlier this month led to a heated personal row with Musk, and a proposal from the tech tycoon to add the Irish flyer to his stable of companies by acquisition.
Indeed, the Tesla (TSLA) founder even created a poll on his social media site X asking followers whether he should buy Ryanair and restore “Ryan as their rightful ruler.” This is, perhaps, a confused reference to Tony Ryan, who co-founded the airline in 1984, but died in 2007.
Hope Row Escalates
O’Leary, who became chief executive in 1994, described Musk as a ‘big idiot’ during the row. However, he said today that he had no intention to cool down the spat.
“I hope it escalates – it generated about €50 million in free publicity and additional bookings for Ryanair last year, if I could escalate it and extend it for another week we’d keep going,” he said. “I thought it was great.”
Indeed, the Ryanair share price has been boosted since mid-January, with O’Leary’s profile in the U.S. also, no doubt, getting a lift.
O’Leary is no stranger to colorful publicity stunts in the U.K. and Ireland. This included, in 2009, telling the media that passengers would be charged for using toilets on Ryanair planes only to admit this was never the case a few days later. He has also called passengers “stupid” for failing to print out boarding passes and advocated customers standing rather than sitting on planes.
He has also floated the idea of low-cost transatlantic flights to the States despite tough economics. An acquisition by Musk could certainly help with any top or bottom line concerns, but perhaps that is a conversation best left for another day.
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