Ruinair. Paul Kilduff
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Open new continental bases in Milan (or Bergamo) and Stockholm (or Skavsta). Another Gulf War. Mount a mock invasion of Lootin’ airport in a tank for the publicity. Launch 73 new routes. Overtake British Airways for the first time by carrying more passengers in a month in Europe. Employ 1,746 staff and fly 19,490,000 passengers using 54 aircraft.
2004
Become the most searched airline on the web as ranked by the teenage billionaire gurus at Google. Open bases near Rome and Barcelona. Warn of a ‘bloodbath’ on fares in the winter months and consequently watch your own share price nosedive in a freefall. Watch the European Union expand eastwards and salivate at the prospect of all those potential passengers. Employ 2,288 staff and fly 24,635,000 passengers using 72 aircraft.
2005
Fly ten UK Conservative Party officials to their annual conference at Blackpool for a fare of one penny. Mick turns down an offer from the BBC to play the Alan Sugar role in the hit TV series The Apprentice. Open new bases at Liverpool, Pisa, East Midlands, Cork and Shannon. Order another 70 Boeings just for the heck of it but tell Boeing to skip the window shades, reclining seats and seat pockets to save a few euros. Note that you can squeeze 59 more seats into a new Boeing 737-800 than in an old Boeing 737-200. Carry more passengers in August than British Airways on their entire worldwide network, and thus claim to be ‘The World’s Favourite Airline’ (despite the fact that Southwest Airlines in the us carry twice as many passengers). Go on at length always about a ‘no fuel surcharge ever’ guarantee as oil prices soar. Employ 2,700 staff and fly 30,946,000 passengers using 87 aircraft.
2006
Open bases in Bremen, Madrid and Marseilles. Accept the delivery of your hundredth shiny new Boeing 737. Fly for the first time outside Europe by opening new routes to Morocco. Launch an online check-in service which was free but now, like everything else, costs money. Make an all-cash offer for Aer Lingus and refer to it as a ‘small regional airline’ despite the fact that Aer Lingus flies to the us and Middle East and your airline doesn’t. Employ 4,200 staff (of 25 different nationalities but 24 of them being Eastern European) and fly 42,500,000 passengers using 103 aircraft.
2007
Open bases in Alicante, Valencia, Belfast, Bristol and Dusseldorf Weeze. For the first time sell seats for one cent including taxes, fees and charges and watch your bookings website grind to a halt with four million hits on a single day. Launch ‘BING’ which delivers fare specials direct to customers’ computers. Discuss the possibility of a future low fares airline flying between Europe and the USA with fares from ten euros and consider calling it RuinAtlantic or Ego Air. Mourn the passing of Tony Ruin, accede to his last request and fly one Ruinair Boeing 737 aircraft over his funeral in County Kildare in a not so silent final tribute. Employ 4,500 staff and fly 50,000,000 passengers using 133 aircraft.
2008
Open bases in Birmingham and Bournemouth. Announce that the possible new low fares airline to the USA will have ‘beds and blowjobs’ in Business Class and see the related press conference video ‘climax’ on YouTube. Watch helplessly as the price of a barrel of oil goes to $148. Take the cheap option and park your excess aircraft at airports in the wintertime. Be sued by President Nicolas Sarkozy over a press advertisement featuring his wife-to-be. See XL Airways go bust. Continue to criticise the BAA ‘Britain’s Awful Airports’. Maintain an average fare of €44. Employ 5,200 staff and fly 58,000,000 passengers using 163 aircraft.
2009 etc.
More of the same. See above, ad nauseum. Specifically, annoy the hell out of everyone else. Retire.
THE IN-LAW FARES AIRLINE
Rod Stewart may be about to pledge ‘for richer for poorer’ as he weds Penny Lancaster. But the famously skinflint rocker, 62, isn’t about to let costs go sky-high—as he has made his kids take a no-frills budget flight to the bash in Italy. Daughter Ruby, 20, joked as they boarded the Ruinair jet at Stansted: ‘We should all take it in turns to stand up at the end of the wedding and say my dad’s really cheap!’
THE MIRROR
THE LAW FARES AIRLINE
Ruinair is the choice of actor Jude Law, who was heading for an Easter holiday break with his kids. A few months ago he claimed he was broke after a pricey divorce settlement with his ex-wife Sadie Frost. ‘I lost everything in order to get the right to visit my children. My bank account is therefore almost always empty.’
WWW.CELEBRITY-GOSSIP.NET
THE LOW BLAIRS AIRLINE
Tony Blair gave budget travellers a shock when he boarded their low-cost flight back to London at the end of a week-long Italian holiday. Blair and a seven-member entourage flew from Rome on a commercial flight with no-frills carrier Ruinair, according to Rome’s Ciampino airport. The prime minister has drawn unwelcome attention from British newspapers in the past for using more costly state flights for holiday trips abroad. Ruinair’s press office could not immediately say how much Blair paid for his ticket. After all other passengers boarding the Stansted-bound Boeing 737 had been double-checked by security, Mr Blair’s party was ushered to specially-reserved seats at the front of the plane. The flight left the Rome airport 25 minutes late following the additional security checks. Showing his thirst for budget travel had its limits, Blair was met on the London airstrip by a limousine. A passenger said. ‘We only paid £49 for our tickets so, assuming he did the same, he must have saved the country a fortune.’
REUTERS
Ruinair Flight FR206 – Tuesday @ 8.30am – DUB-STN-DUB
Fare €2 plus taxes, fees and charges €42
Ruinair have a proud history of stopping passengers. In 2003 they refused boarding to ‘IT girl’ and Bollinger babe Tara Palmer Tomkinson because she did not have a required passport, despite travelling on an internal flight within the UK. She forgot IT. Apparently she retorted, ‘Do you know who I am?’ She was lucky not to suffer the fate of a us domestic passenger who once shrieked the same riposte, before a check-in agent used a public address system to speak to the entire Departures terminal: ‘May I have your attention please. We have a passenger here who does not know who he is. If anyone can help him find his identity, please step forward to this counter.’ Also in 2003 they refused boarding to Jeremy Beadle, much to the relief of the other passengers on the flight. They stopped Marian Finucane, one of Ireland’s best known media personalities, because she had no ID. They refused boarding to a John O’Donoghue on a flight from Cork to Dublin because he did not have any picture ID and he was the Irish government’s Minister for Tourism. They stopped ‘Iron Mike’ Tyson from boarding a Gatwick to Dublin flight because he arrived late. The brutal, aggressive yet floored Tyson was quoted as saying, ‘As long as I am not too late, then it’s okay.’
But I am not truly convinced. Ruinair flew the oldest football in the world from Glasgow Prestwick to Hamburg Lubeck to take pride of place at a World Cup exhibition in Hamburg. Checking in under the name of Mr A. Football, the sixteenth-century pig’s bladder, reputed to have been kicked about by Mary Queen of Scots at her weekly five-a-side game in Linlithgow, travelled in a specially designed box, had its own seat and I am told selected a pizza and Bovril from the in-flight menu. I am sure that ball had no passport. I always heed Mick’s advice.