Irish rival says O'Leary told him 'F*** **f'
04.08.08
The war of words between two of Ireland's top airline bosses has taken a bitter turn with the head of Aer Arann claiming Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary told him: ‘F**k off back to Connemara where you come from,’ the Belfast Telegraph reports.
Aer Arann boss Padraig O Ceidigh says the abusive remarks were made during a meeting which he called with the Ryanair chief late last year to try to sort out the increasingly hostile situation between the two airlines - which does not seem to have worked! He also alleged that Mr O'Leary pretended to play the fiddle on several occasions during the meeting when the Aer Arann boss asked him why he was trying to put his comparatively small airline out of business.
Mr O Ceidigh told the newspaper: ‘Ryanair has been attacking me and my business for the past two years. Their strategy is to close down regional airports and Aer Arann. So I called a meeting with him some months back to ask him face to face about what he was doing.'
‘[His] airline has about 55 million passengers, [but] they're focusing on a small little airline with 1 million passengers? It doesn't seem to add up for me that he is putting so much time and energy in to that.'
‘So I rang him up last year and I said 'Can I meet you to see what the story is and to see what you're at here?' We met in his office in Dublin airport at about half past eight in the morning and I said 'Michael, what are you trying to do to me? I'm not in your space. I have no aspirations to be in that league, I'm just trying to run my own business.'
‘That's when he told me that he'd give me a bit of advice and said: 'Why don't you fuck off back to Connemara where you came from?' Then he said in no uncertain terms that he was going to take my business out and either take over or do the same to Aer Lingus.’
‘What really hurt me was the way [he pretended] to play the fiddle. I said 'Michael, you've 700 routes I've only 40 but you're focusing on my key 40 routes. I said to him 'It's about you competing with me rather than me competing with you'. And then that's when he started pretending to play the fiddle. He did that on two or three occasions during the meeting.'
'I got very frustrated but I didn't say anything to him. I realised it was probably a mistake for me to go and meet the guy. There was no point on arguing with him.’
Mr O Ceidigh also claimed that at the end of the meeting, Mr O'Leary insisted on walking him to his car through an open plan office rather than down the original route that he had come in. Afterwards, I just felt that the reason he wanted me to go out that way was because he wanted to show his staff that I was trying to go to him on my hands and knees and that he had me where he wanted.
Despite the meeting, Mr O Ceidigh told the newspaper that he is not intimidated by Michael O'Leary's so-called 'bullying tactics' and believes his company can maintain its position as one of the top European airlines.
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