Tony Ryan's global vision for Irish business was an inspiration to Michael O'Leary, his right-hand man, writes Ciarán Hancock, Business Affairs Correspondent.
Irish aviation owes a large debt to Dr Tony Ryan, who passed away earlier this week, but it could all have been so, so different, according to Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary. In 1954, Ryan took a job with Aer Lingus in Shannon, having previously worked with the local sugar factory in Thurles on leaving school.
"In the space of a month or two, he went to the personnel department and said that he'd had an offer of a job as a teacher in London. Because he was a traffic officer [with Aer Lingus], he had skills that they couldn't replace easily and he eventually negotiated a full-time contract there."
Ryan had no university education and no offer of a job as a teacher. It was the first of many gambles he would take as he made his way through life.
"He was just bluffing," says O'Leary. "If that personnel manager in Aer Lingus in Shannon had said: 'Well, bugger off to London', the history of Irish and European aviation would have been entirely different."
O'Leary first met Ryan in the mid-1980s as a young accountant working with Stokes Kennedy Crowley (now KPMG). At the time, he would attend meetings with Ryan in his then home at Killboy in Co Tipperary. "I was brought along as the gofer. I was very impressed by him because he was rich, successful and was running a company that had terrific mystique. Nobody knew what the hell aircraft leasing was."
He was particularly taken by Ryan's global vision. "He was the first businessman I'd met who had this global ambition. Everybody else was worried about the cost of women's knickers and the cost of this, that and the other.
"He had maps of the world looking at where he could lease aircraft. It was revolutionary in the mid-1980s because Ireland back then was very insular. He was one of only a few businessmen putting an Irish stamp on the world."
O'Leary decided to grab the bull by the horns and made contact with the Tipperary-born entrepreneur with an interesting proposition. "I called him up at the weekend," O'Leary recalls.
"I said: 'I think if you did this, this and this you could save some money - but don't tell the [ SKC] partners that I told you.' That's when I first made an impression on him."
O'Leary left KPMG in 1986, at which point Ryan offered him a job. "I said no. I'd bought a shop in Walkinstown and wanted to go and do my own thing for a year or two.
"At that stage GPA was a big organisation. Every six months he'd give me a call and ask how I was getting on and ask if I wanted to go and work for him.
"After a couple of years I'd done quite well and said: 'Look, I'd love to work for you for a year. I don't want to work for GPA, but I'll work for you personally. The deal was, I'd work for nothing but I'd get 5 per cent of the action."
O'Leary recalls how every year he'd have to threaten to "resign" in order to get his 5 per cent but the money would always come through in the end. "It would be a negotiation, but that's where you learn and it's why he was so good and why he was so tough."
O'Leary was parachuted into Ryanair in 1988 at a time when it was making heavy losses. The airline required a €25 million cash injection from Ryan in the early 1990s to keep the aircraft in the air.
O'Leary saw only one solution to its difficulties. "I was begging him, shut it down, close it down, it will never make money. It was doomed.
"Tony was the only person who said no, partly because his name was on the side of it but also partly, I think, because he didn't like being beaten. He wasn't going to be beaten by the Government and the State monopoly. He had great balls."
O'Leary subsequently tried to sell the airline to Aer Lingus for €25 million and, after some years, to British Airways for about €130 million, but both attempts came to naught.
"Bernie Cahill [ the former Aer Lingus chairman] wouldn't or couldn't do the deal. I don't know why, it would've been a steal. I think he thought we were just a bunch of jumped-up pups. We were never sure that BA was serious."
Ryan decided that a change of tack was required, and dispatched O'Leary to the US to meet Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines and learn all he could to put in place a low-cost model for Ryanair. "We followed the Southwest model, but we have taken it way beyond Southwest. Much of that was down to Tony.
"We were the first to take the food off the planes and the first to charge for drinks. This was revolutionary stuff and every time Tony said: 'Go for it, providing you reduce air fares'."
Ryanair began to turn a corner and was operating in the black. The airline made its stock exchange debut in 1997, after which Ryan's role became less hands-on. It is now the biggest low-cost carrier in Europe by a large margin.
O'Leary also observed Ryan's lowest moment, when the flotation of GPA was pulled at the last moment in 1992. "At a stroke he lost practically everything. GPA was worthless. He took ferocious abuse in the press, from the financial community. They must have been dark days for him.
"He was remarkable in the way he fought on through that, restructured the company and eventually sold it off. And he kept GPA in Shannon."
The pair didn't always agree on everything. A proposal by Ryan in the mid-1990s to launch a second airport for Dublin in Baldonnel was not supported by his protégé.
"I never thought it would work from a Ryanair point of view, only because we were so big at Dublin Airport and you couldn't just move to Baldonnel.
"There's no doubt that he was absolutely right about a second competing airport for Dublin, but the timing was just wrong."
O'Leary says he was a regular visitor to Ryan's Lyons Estate in Celbridge.
"Every week, or maybe twice a month, I'd pop down to Lyons for a cup of tea. We'd have a chat, talk about strategy, what's happening, problems and so on."
He recalls fondly how Ryan loved puffing on a big cigar and having a few jars and a bit of craic down the pub. He recalls, too, how Ryan loved picking up knick-knacks from around the world.
"He was in Mexico one year and bought an old antique door and shipped it back to Killboy. He thought, 'what the hell am I going to do with this thing?', so he built a chapel in Killboy to fit the door.
"He was a great man for buying a statue that no one could use and building a garden around it."
Last Monday evening, O'Leary saw Ryan for the last time. "I went down for a cup of tea at half past six and left at about a quarter to 11," he says.
"He was in great form, talking about the past, talking about the future, wanting to know what the five-year strategy was with Ryanair, what would we do when we got to 2012, where would we go next. Should we export Ryanair to a different part of the world. Maybe do it to Latin America or some other part of the world. he was full of ideas."
And will any be adopted?
"Yes is the answer. You are fortunate to come across geniuses like that. You would be stupid to ignore their advice. You may not agree with it all the time, but you'd be stupid to ignore it."
O'Leary believes Ryan's legacy will be long and lasting. His patronage of the arts and education; his love for restoring old properties to their former glory; his support of the bloodstock industry.
In the final analysis, however, he believes Ryanair will be his lasting memorial. "He has changed the lives of millions of people. Ryanair started the low-fares revolution in Europe. I think and hope that Ryanair would be the lasting and enduring legacy. "
"He was a genius. Most people are good at one thing in their lives but Tony had so much going on.
"I don't think I'd be capable of setting up Ryanair. I'm not sure I'd be capable of doing any other job you gave me to do, either.
"Tony was smart. Art, sport, education, there were so many aspects to his life, he was an incredible man."