7 Comments

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2. 

   Mahinda Herath

   September 10, 2010, 11:25 am

   There it goes again! Another addition to a collection of controversial statements by Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary!

   Remember his announcements on ‘Pay-Per-Poo’ service (charging passengers £1 to use the toilet on their flights) and removing check-in desks from airports and replacing them with online check-in? It is a known fact that Michael O’Leary deliberately makes controversial statements to court controversy to generate free publicity and gain media attention for the airline. This has led to a number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), court actions and eventual admission that these were deliberate publicity stunts!

   I wonder whether the “One Pilot Story” is another of those deliberate gimmicks!

   Some aspects of Ryanair’s business tactics may not be conducive for the cause of “budget telecom model”.

3. 

   Rohan Samarajiva

   September 10, 2010, 12:56 pm

   I beg to disagree.

   People travel on driverless trains. This would have been unthinkable 50 years ago, when trains were central to people’s thinking about transport. Now we take them for granted.

   Both the current Afghan war and Eelam War IV saw major advances in pilotless aircraft. Why would we think that these innovations cannot be applied in civil aviation?

4. 

   Mahinda Herath

   September 10, 2010, 5:58 pm

   I think that the point has been missed here.

   I was just wondering whether Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary was serious in making this statement, given his past track record of deliberate publicity stunts! (Whether it is feasible and safe to fly a commercial passenger airline with just “One Pilot in the Cockpit” is another matter and that has to be commented upon by aviation experts and I am not one of them!).

   However, I beg to point out that driverless trains and pilotless drones (used in warfare and spying) may not be ideal examples to cite here. Driverless trains run on guided tracks and when the power to the train is cutoff from a remote location the train comes to a halt on the track itself. As for the pilotless drones, there is no issue of passenger safety or loss of life in case of a mishap.

   My only intention in writing the earlier comment was to press the point that “some aspects of Ryanair’s business tactics may not be conducive for the cause of budget telecom model”. [I repeat “some aspects”].

5. 

   Abu Saeed Khan

   September 14, 2010, 2:55 pm

   Mobile phone had made them irrelevant:
   Rural telephony
   Public phone booth
   Telephone directory
   Operator-assisted calls
   Nationwide long distance calls

   Internet is making them irrelevant:
   Difference between voice and data
   Difference between telecom and broadcasting
   Difference between local and international calls

   Bharti Airtel neither purchases nor operates its networks in India. The operator just buys minutes from the vendors.

   Mindset is the first victim of innovation. Because innovation boosts productivity, profitability and competition.

6. 

   Mahinda Herath

   September 14, 2010, 6:40 pm

   Latest (13th September 2010) from Ryanair and Michael O’Leary: Says he will step down in future and that the airline is set to move away from bargain-basement prices. “We have to move away over the next number of years from being obsessed with having the lowest fares in the market ……. We won’t need my dog and pony show, which is about generating publicity” adds O’Leary.O’Leary says that the airline cannot sustain the ultra-cheap average fare of around $50.

7. 

   Abu Saeed Khan

   September 15, 2010, 5:13 pm

   Perhaps it’s time to look eastward: How AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes shrugged off the global recession.