When spending a penny could cost you a pound!
Michael O'Leary, the boss of budget airline Ryanair, has attracted unflattering headlines over the last few days after he suggested that his company may in the future charge passengers one pound to use in-flight toilets. While there is a suggestion that the comment was made to attract attention to his airline operations there are some in the city who believe that he is deadly serious about cutting costs at the budget airline operation.
While in reality there is very little chance of his "spend a pound to spend a penny" policy will ever become reality it does show how difficult trading is in the sector at the moment. The last 12 months has seen more and more budget airlines looking to cut as many cost as possible as budgets get tighter and passenger numbers continue to fall. While it is some time since we have seen a high-profile casualty in the sector many experts predict we will see more damage in the short to medium term and potentially well-known names fall by the wayside.
There is no suggestion that Ryanair falls into this category even though the company is considering ever more bizarre ways to save money.
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