Dear me: what’s afoot at Ryanair?

18,000 flights cancelled, 34 routes suspended, 400,000 passengers affected.

We’d better roll up sleeves as getting dirty hands with this seems inevitable.

Democratizing travel, making it accessible to every size of pocket is a good, if you take a Mill/Bentham utilitarian approach. Maximum happiness to the greatest number and all that jazz.

Fine. But what is the cost of sale? What must be sacrificed on profit’s altar to yield this aim? [I should declare I’ve not taken a Ryanair flight so use what’s reported and given in testimony] Leg room, baggage allowance, refreshments, reliability. Mebbie these are understandable casualties in the battle to shrink costs.

What we find somewhat puzzling is the frantic addiction to speaking publicly about a customer-base as though it were composed of Neanderthals and lunatics. This indicates a level of contempt which perplexes even as this is written. It seems bizarre that a man who presents himself as Mr Ryanair should be taken seriously when he appears so contemptuous of all those who’ve created his faecal fortune.

That his pilots and cabin crew require proper rest is not controversial. That it took some straw for the camel’s back to break so spectacularly is not odd. Treating employees and passengers as effluent is perfectly killing.