News: Michael O'Leary responds to bishop's comments
Flights > News > # 870 (25/07/2006)
Ryanair’s chief executive has fired a broadside at the Bishop of London for saying it was sinful to pollute the planet by jetting away on holiday.
Michael O'Leary said that by urging people to stay at home, Richard Chartres, the third most senior bishop in the Church of England, was hoping more people would fill his empty pews. The boss of the no-frills airline said: "No wonder his attendances are well down. If people stayed at home, there would be a 20pc unemployment rate in the tourist industry.
"The Bishop of London has got empty churches - presumably if no one went on holiday perhaps they might turn up and listen to his sermons.”
Mr O’Leary added: "Goodness knows what the bishop would know about greenhouse gases. He was obviously at some dinner party with the chatterati."
Mr Chartres told The Sunday Times that people needed to "tread more lightly on the earth" and alter their lifestyles. He added: “Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes.”
Mr O’Leary also attacked the press for their role in creating the current “furore” over aviation’s contribution to global warming.
"It's July, the press have nothing to write about. The Prime Minister's on holiday, the World Cup is over, Zidane has retired - I know, let's write about the impact of aviation on the environment." He denounced such articles as "cliched horse****".
Mr O’Leary, who has courted controversy in the past with a string of outspoken comments, added that "idiot politicians" were intent on slapping taxes on air travel, but governments had been heavily taxing motoring for 50 years with little impact.
He argued that aviation was only the seventh largest contributor to atmospheric pollution and that the best way of tackling the problem was to tax airlines with older, dirtier planes.
"They should do what Ryanair does. Get rid of gas-guzzling aircraft," he said.
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Comment:
Despite a series of increasingly bizarre comments coming out of the Ryanair press machine in recent months, I'm inclined to agree with Mr O'Leary on this one.
Whatever people might think of Ryanair's attitude towards customer service when things go wrong, their environmental record is actually very commendable, albeit for logical economic reasons. Environmentalists might love to hate them for their aggressive marketing, and for flying to remote fields which are served by precious little public transport, but when it comes to flying the most people using as little fuel is possible, then Ryanair are up there with the best in the business.
Ryanair have recently got rid of the last of their noisy and inefficient Boeing 737-200 aircraft, and now operate a fleet which is made up entirely of the next generation 737-800 model, which carries 189 passengers whilst burning a similar amount of fuel to the '200, which could only carry 132 passengers. Whilst it might be true that flights into Frankfurt Hahn will generate a far greater proportion of onward car journeys than rival airlines' flights into Frankfurt International, it is also true that Ryanair's usage of these secondary airports result in significantly less fuel wastage due to stacking and taxiing.
Ryanair might then attract further criticism for "giving away" so many cheap flights, but the "yield management" pricing structure pioneered by the no-frills airlines still ends up resulting in significantly higher aircraft occupancy (and therefore much lower fuel burn per passenger). It also gives millions of people the opportunity to take flights they would otherwise not be able to afford. Politicians need to make sure that any environmental charging regime does not end up making flights a privilege that only the wealthy few (such as high ranking clergy!) can afford. As long as taxation measures are proportional to the cost of the ticket being booked, then this probably won’t happen, as the heavier taxes would end up being imposed on the more expensive last-minute fares, which are generally snapped up by business travellers and other people who need to go somewhere quickly, and are prepared to pay the premium for doing so.
Politicians will also need to look at the longterm picture before rushing through any quick fix solution which might initially look appealing. For example, the Liberal Democrats have proposed a taxation scheme which would apply to the aircraft, rather than to the individual passengers. This, in theory, would favour airlines like Ryanair, who already have seat occupancy levels approaching 80%. The problem would be that flights which had too few passengers might end up being cancelled, and that airlines would be reluctant to invest in new routes, which usually take several months to prove themselves. This prospect of facing an exorbitant environmental charge for carrying 20 passengers on a plane capable of taking almost ten times that amount would then have to be balanced against the likelihood of making compensation payments on a cancelled flight, inevitably resulting in higher prices all round.
We will no doubt hear plenty more from the no-frills airlines about the need to stop subsidising the dinosaur state airlines, and about how reforming European airspace control could instantly bring about significant improvements in efficiency. These are both valid points, but continued bleating about every aspect of the environmental charging proposals will only serve to increase the vigour with which the politicians will impose them. The airlines would like to see everything left to the market, allowing Darwinian principles to weed out the inefficient airlines, especially as high oil prices will always lead to demands from the accountants to minimise fuel wastage as much as possible. However, consumer trends can be slow to change, and growth in demand for cheap flights cannot be allowed to feed itself unchecked. Whilst it would certainly be wrong to point the finger entirely at no-frills airlines, they are certainly responsible for much of the expansion in air travel in recent years. It is not fair to say that this is entirely down to aggressive marketing - prior to the start of EU Open Skies in 1993, the price of flights was kept artificially high due to archaic competition laws.
I very rarely agree with anything Tony Blair says, but he was right when he commented that the cat is out of the bag with regards to no-frills flying. Even if a large part of previous growth has been down to playing "catch up" since the liberalisation of the European aviation market (and let's not also forget the huge catch-up game the former Eastern Bloc economies are also playing), politicians and environmentalists remain keen to see some form of charging scheme put in place to slow down this growth. Most of the other airlines have accepted this to some extent, but Ryanair revel in their anti-establishment image. This should really be unnecessary, considering that taxes on fuel would almost certainly hurt them less than many other airlines.
One final point - I'm not quite sure why Mr O’Leary thinks that there would only be 20% unemployment within the tourism industry if everyone stayed at home. He’s not usually one for understatements a point, but surely that figure would be much higher?
