Gamble while you fly!
Bingo! Ryanair hits the fan again
Rodney Hobson, 01/11/06 15:23
Don’t you just love Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary, whose uncanny accuracy in hitting the fan deserves an Olympic medal.
Just as the online gaming industry is facing meltdown after the enforced removal of their American gamblers, Ryanair is seeking to carve out its own niche in the depleted industry.
It is launching an online gaming partnership with the cutely named jackpotjoy.com, an online bingo operator. Ryanair passengers will play Ryanair Bingo and other games paying instant winnings as they book their flights, car hire and hotels on the budget airline’s website.
More than 80 games will be available with jackpots over £200,000. It sure beats being stuck on a plane for several hours to end up at an airport miles away from where you really wanted to go.
The down on earth version starts immediately and in typical Ryanair style all players in the first week will be offered a free flight.
An inflight version, using mobile phones or terminals handed out on board, will be available when the airline gets approval for the technology to be used on aircraft. O’Leary hopes the fun in the sky will start next summer.
He reckons that Ryanair will make more money in flight than during the booking process, and anyone who was attempted to buy anything on line or endured the boredom of a no-frills flight will surely testify to that.
Ryanair makes about a fifth of its revenue from services other than flying and it aims to increase ancilliary revenue by 20% a year.
Inevitably, O’Leary used the launch of his ethereal gambling to attack those calling for a green tax on airline omissions, saying they were insignificant compared with pollution from cars and from emerging economies.
He told a news conference that aviation accounts for only 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and described the campaign in his own inimitable way as ‘the usual horseshit’.
O’Leary also threw in a reference to security being a shambles at Stansted, his main UK base.
Clearly he is in no mood to placate the authorities as he awaits clearance for his audacious bid for Irish rival Aer Lingus, whose shares have slowly sunk back to €2.85, just above the €2.80 offer.
Aer Lingus pilots would probably enjoy the distraction of in-flight bingo rather than contemplating the loss to their pensions fund after their fund trustees squandered money on buying Aer Lingus shares at higher prices in what appeared to be an ill-advised attempt to block Ryanair.
Meanwhile Ryanair shares continued the rise they began at €6.49 in May by adding 2 cents to €8.83.