Pay-per-view porn – yet another pr stunt?

MICHAEL O’LEARY, Ryanair’s CEO, plans to launch an app for Ryanair passengers to watch in-flight pornography on their iPads and, it’s claimed too, he intends to have outside smoking areas on the wings once he’s convinced Health and Safety colleagues it’s perfectly safe.

I made the last bit up but you get the idea.

Well, hot on the heels of Ryanair’s sexy cabin crew calendar, Michael O’Leary has hit the headlines again with his latest controversial proposal for in-flight porn movies.

“Hotels around the world have them, so why wouldn’t we?” he told The Sun in justification. But then, looking on the bright side, as long as he isn’t appearing in any of them it might be OK …

This from the budget airline boss, remember, who recently boasted about “changing passenger behaviour” on short-haul flights by not only charging passengers for using the lavatory in-flight but ripping out two of the three lavatories in his Boeing 737-800s and installing up to nine extra seats. Good grief! Let’s hope he doesn’t want to round it up to ten by ejecting the co-pilot too, although I wouldn’t put it past him.

O’Leary’s latest “brainwave” was revealed as Ryanair bucked airline industry gloom by upping its 2011 profit forecasts by 10 per cent to £377m.
All of which only serves to underline just what an astute business man O’Leary is! He comes up with the most outrageous stories and gets the kind of free publicity which would cost millions. Just imagine the scene with the Ryanair cabin crew coming around, advertising the options from their in-flight entertainment, beverage and duty free list. “Yes, I’ll have the breakfast bap, tea with two sugars, and a little light bondage, please.”
You have to admire the audacity of everyone’s favourite love-to-hate budget airline boss whose approach seems totally based on a strange kind of “anti-marketing”. “Any publicity is good publicity” but sooner or later it’ll backfire – though hopefully not in mid-air.

After all, it’s only a matter of time before he threatens a “Seat Wear and Tear Charge”, not to mention an “In-flight Magazine Replacement Charge”. Oh, and when would the “Oxygen Mask tariff” kick in, too?

We often read about ‘Your Favourite Airline’ polls in the travel press. A more useful one would be: “Which airline do you hate the most?” Then again, since in my opinion they’re all equally harrowing, what would be the point?

Nora Johnson’s novels: Soul Stealer & The De Clerambault Code (www.nora-johnson.com) available at Amazon in paperback and as eBook. Profits to Cudeca.