Originally Posted by
Amexpat
My guess is that many pax fly Ryan Air despite O' Leary, because of the much cheaper price.
I agree, a lot of pax fly RyanAir for the cheap prices, not for O'Leary. But, in order to see that the prices are so low, you need to hear about them before, right? So, you either hear of them from paid publicity, or from the free publicity (including word of mouth).
Originally Posted by
Amexpat
His nastiness is not necessary -other bosses of low cost carriers have gotten lots of favorable free publicity, like Herb Kelleher of Southwest and Freddie Laker.
Of course, the free publicity may be favorable or not. Unfortunatelly, the bad publicity is quite as effective as the good one, but it spreads much faster and more. He knows it and he uses it. For example, we are talking here about him because he is (or looks like) a jerk. But, I preffer to pay him, instead of "image building companies" - aka paid publicity.
Originally Posted by
Amexpat
It is true that RA has been very successful, so they are obviously doing something right.
Totally agree! After all, lately it seems that they are #1 in Europe and EasyJet remained 2nd.