Michael O’Leary, Airfares and Recession

"Eventually there’ll be one last British Airways flight with a bunch of old toffee-nosed snobs on it but all the kids of the toffee-nosed snobs will be flying on Ryanair."

So opines Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair chief executive. You gotta love the guy. It's not that he necessarily speaks the truth, it's more that he speaks his mind at a time where most chief executives clam up, afraid of doing damage to their precious stock prices, which always take precedence over the common good of the people they transport.

O'Leary is bullish on recession, "It will never go horrendously wrong when you’re offering the cheapest fares in Europe. We just have to keep flying more aircraft, opening up more routes and offering people more cheap flights."

I like contrarians. They're right more often than they're wrong. O'Leary is said to be cutting fares by a further 5 per cent and opening new routes to Italy and Germany.

We travelers could use more of that kinda thing, don't you think? Read more: Recession will be just the ticket, says Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary