The documentary also promises to expose a “cynical attitude among staff towards passengers and their welfare”. But anybody who has travelled on Ryanair probably knows this already.
The Irish airline, on course for €320m net profit this year, can expect a rough ride. The programme will be a stark contrast to the bland corporate homeliness of the easyJet check-in-desk reality show, Airline.
Michael O’Leary is used to such treatment, however, and often revels in it. The Guardian famously published a long-running campaign against the airline, which it dubbed “Eireflot”. The campaign had no impact on Ryanair numbers whatsoever.
Television is different. Just ask Eddie Hobbs, who effectively rehashed a load of previously publicised newspaper articles and managed to change government policy on the Groceries Order.
The response to the Dispatches programme will be familiar. Be prepared once more for O’Leary’s impersonation of Ben “better value beats them all” Dunne.
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We all know the drill. Ryanair’s average fare is €39. EasyJet’s average fare is €61. If you want a smile and a bit of shake’n’vac, then pay the extra €22.
Low prices are the Ryanair brand proposition, and as long as there is no evidence of a compromise in safety standards, then the airline will emerge from Dispatches relatively unscathed.
The only possible problem is that low prices are Ryanair’s sole brand proposition and if safety is ever seriously compromised, then the airline will struggle to find another lifebelt under its seat.
However, even such an unfortunate event may no longer be a threat. As the largest transporter of passengers within Europe, Ryanair is now so big that it could probably weather such a blow.
Spain gives CRH boss pain over slick cement moves
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CRH’s carefully cultured Grandpa Walton reputation in the merger and acquisitions field has taken a knock in Spain. Uniland, a public company, is claiming that the building materials company’s €300m purchases of 26.3% of its shares was “unlawful”.
CRH bought the shares after some Uniland family members sold out to a series of Spanish holding companies. These shares were then bought by CRH.
Uniland insists that the purchases contravened pre-emption rights that gave other shareholders first call.
At the time, CRH boss Liam O’Mahony said: “We look forward to working constructively with the company into the future.”
Not likely. Apart from the court case, the remaining shareholders have also entered an agreement not to sell to CRH.
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The company has been known to operate in this way in the past. After all, its rather controversial purchase of a stake in a privatised Polish cement maker was conducted through a series of holding companies.
Big companies such as CRH often operate “under radar” to ensure they do not end up paying top dollar for assets. Paying top dollar is not the CRH way. The company also has a reputation, particularly in America, as the friendly acquirer, retaining family management. The softly, softly approach also helps keep the price down.
Will O’Mahony now go hostile in Spain?
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Gallagher sings when he’s winning
WHAT precisely was John Gallagher doing when the battle for Jurys Doyle raged white hot? The serial entrepreneur, married to Bernie Doyle, was central to the hotel family’s positioning in the battle against raiders Sean Dunne and friends, helping plot its strategy.
At the same time, however, Gallagher was also realising his dream to front a rock band. In the space of four months, Gallagher and a pal hired a couple of session musicians and, practising with a religous fervour, managed to get to the point where the ad-hoc band delivered a 90-minute set to an invited audience of 300 guests at the Purty Kitchen in Dun Laoghaire.
The gig took place just before Christmas and raised a substantial sum for charity. Takeover battles, it’s only rock’n’roll.
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Call to end thriving Irish directory’s golden years
AN irate reader from Limerick has joined the debate over whether Golden Pages and its venture-capital owners have managed to get away with screaming blue murder in the Irish market.
Recently, it emerged that competition authorities in Britain were putting the squeeze on Yell. The directory company, the owner of the Yellow Pages, operates under a price cap, yet still claims to have reduced its prices by 30% in recent years.
The Competition Commission wants it to reduce prices further, and the Yell share price is under pressure.
Sources told The Sunday Times that Golden Pages ad prices rose by about 2% last year. Our Limerick reader had just been invoiced a 25% increase in his advertising rate for 2006. He raised the matter with Golden Pages, but got no joy. No other avenue of protest exists.
Golden Pages is not the only directory publisher in the Irish market, but it has an effective monopoly position, and a far bigger slice of the market than Yell.
It is also extremely profitable. In 2003, the last year for which accounts are available, sales rose by a little more than €1m to €67m. Pre-tax profits in the same period rose 45% to almost €29m. Any business with such a profit margin has to be admired — or closely scrutinised.
According to the Irish Independent, Golden Pages’ owner is examining the option of relocating some of its functions to India, presumably to make those margins even fatter.
Formerly part of Eircom, Golden Pages has been sold twice in the past four years.
It is amazing that a monopoly can change hands twice in such a short space of time without anybody raising any competition concerns.